Michelle Liu Photos
Avid reader Mikela Jones with her father Michael.
The new library.
Newhallville has no public libraries. Or bookstores.
It does have a police substation — which now has books.
Local cops and other volunteers showed up on Saturday to re-landscape the neighborhood’s “book desert” with the launch of the neighborhood’s first “Little Free Library”: a box of rotating titles installed right in the front of the substation on 596 WInchester Ave.
Adults and children in Newhallville can now swap, borrow and read books from the box at their own leisure without library cards, due dates or late fees.
These low-effort mini-libraries have popped up across the country in the past few years, no bigger than large birdhouses and frequently embedded amid residential streets and people’s front yards.
Mikela Jones, a sixth-grader at Celentano Magnet School, had already picked out half a dozen books, including Diary of a Wimpy Kid and a biography on Tom Brady.
Monecure Williams with one of the Little Free Library’s many choices.
“It’s awesome,” said Lateefah Williams, as her son Monecure, 3, flipped through his options. “It puts a focus on reading in Newhallville.”
Newhallville Alder Delphine Clyburn clutches biographies of African-American icons.
Along with boosting literacy, the books reflect the predominantly African-American community they have been placed in and include offerings such as the biographies of African-American icons like Toni Morrison and Tyler Perry. Of the 3,000 or so books donated to the library so far, many are the “type of books I grew up on,” said Newhallville top cop Sgt. Shafiq Abdussabur.
Michelle Liu Photo
The library arose as a joint project between Jane Lewis, a former librarian at Hamden Hall Country Day School, and Abdussabur. Lewis donated the library box, which has been decorated with medallions painted by Abdussabur, who’s an artist and author. They’ve received help from not-forprofits like New Haven Reads and the support of area alders like Anna Festa, Brenda Foskey-Cyrus and Delphine Clyburn.
For now, the Little Free Library has been placed in the hands of Abdussabur’s officers, who will maintain the boxes and swap out books in the library as necessary. But Abdussabur is also looking for other neighborhood stewards who who go out of their way to make sure the library is stocked and maintained.
The Little Free Library serves as a “neighborhood water cooler,” Lewis said — a place to stop, chat and share lives and books. She anticipates that soon people will feel inclined to check in and take care of the library, whether that’s brushing leaves off or making sure the door is latched.
It’s an act of good community policing, too, Abdussabur said, allowing him and his officers to serve the community as much as they protect it.
These community libraries are in line with Mayor Toni Harp’s citywide initiatives to improve literacy and early childhood education, Abdussabur noted,the subject of a neighborhood canvass a year and a half ago.
Abdussabur has plans for two more Little Free Libraries, one at the corner of Ivy and Butler Streets and another in Cedar Hill. He emphasized that the project will always need support to stay sustainable. (Monetary donations can be made to the nonprofit Read to Grow or in actual books).
Abdussabur & co. install the box.
A team of four bolted the box to the wall. Then, one by one, each community member present placed a book in the box.
“This box is going to outlast my term,” Abdussabur said.