“I was the Community Redevelopment Agency’s deputy administrator for downtown L.A. when I managed the outside volunteer effort to get the books out of the library after the fire. It was the most extraordinary and inspiring thing I’ve ever been involved in”
I was the Community Redevelopment Agency’s deputy administrator for downtown L.A. when I managed the outside volunteer effort to get the books out of the library afterWe had been told we had 96 hours to get the books out before they were irreparably damaged. It took us 2 1/2 days to remove 3 million books.Share quote & linkTV networks asking for volunteers. When I got to the Central Library on April 29, 1986, outside the west entrance, there were already about 100 people milling around.
Redevelopment staff members went around downtown handing out leaflets asking for more volunteers. ARCO set up a phone bank. The Biltmore sent down huge coffee urns. But it was the residents of Los Angeles who saved the books. Nobody asked for lunch. Nobody asked for a break. Nobody asked for anything. They just showed up and stayed until it was done.
Patricia Sterne Evans previously worked for the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency and is now a grant writer in Los Angeles.Book talk at 7:30 p.m. June 25. Doors open at 6:30 p.m.
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