Fifty Years of Cherrydale Library
by Greg Embree, Secretary, Citizens for Cherrydale Library, Arlington, Virginia
Photos reprinted with permission by the author.
You might think that the residents of a suburb of information-rich Washington, D.C., would have no great use for a small, neighborhood library. You would be wrong. The citizens of the northern tip of Arlington, Virginia, have enjoyed their local branch library since its founding in 1922 and especially since it moved to its present spot in 1961. On Saturday, July 9, 2011, they came together and celebrated Cherrydale Library’s 50th anniversary at its present location.
The standing-room-only crowd that day enjoyed a pre-ceremony concert by a local jazz singer, birthday cake donated by a nearby bakery, an exhibit of photographs showing the library in 1961 and its predecessor buildings in earlier years, an art display by neighborhood elementary school kids commemorating the library’s anniversary, face-painting for children, a display of the best-selling books of fifty years ago, a giant birthday card for everyone to sign, and a post-ceremony airing of the greatest rock-and-roll hits of 1961. The celebration was organized and paid for by the Citizens for Cherrydale Library, a volunteer group, with the cooperation of the county Libraries Department.
The formal part of the ceremony began with the posting of the colors by local Boy Scouts, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. The list of speakers included Judson Gardner, the 85-year-old one-time junior partner of architect J. Russell Bailey (1905-92), who designed Cherrydale Library and 104 other libraries during his illustrious career, including the university libraries at Yale, the University of Maryland, and the University of Virginia, plus four other public libraries in Arlington itself. The featured speaker was Rep. James Moran (D.-Va.), whose reminiscences about his childhood experiences with his own neighborhood library would have warmed the heart of any professional librarian.
Elenor Hodges, executive director of Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment, presented a letter of commendation to Carolyn Barton, acting manager of Cherrydale Library, lauding Cherrydale Library for its remarkable energy efficiency. Local historian Kathryn Holt Springston recapped the long history of Cherrydale Library. She was followed by her husband Scott, who recounted his own memories of the library and his love of reading.
The citizens who argued for a new building for Cherrydale Library a half century ago were led by activists in the county’s civil rights movement. They saw in a local library the same commitment to the civic good as the extension of equal rights and opportunities to African-American citizens. In 1959, the first public school to be integrated in Virginia was Stratford Junior High, located, coincidentally, a block and a half from Cherrydale Library. The library’s patrons today see their structure—an architectural gem—as the physical embodiment of the same civic spirit fifty years ago that made Arlington a better county, Virginia a better state, and America a better country. On July 9, they celebrated that with gusto. Days after the event, Charlie Clark, a journalist in the Falls Church News-Press, wrote, “The celebration should be duplicated across the country.”
