Fort Greene Families Celebrate Impending Improvements At Walt Whitman Library
P.S. 67 and other Fort Greene families celebrate a successful campaign for upgrades to the Walt Whitman Library. (Photo by Heather Chin / Fort Greene Focus)
The yellow and purple balloons and excited chanting of children beckoned from yards away, telling passersby at St. Edwards Street and Myrtle Avenue that Something-Special was going on here, in front of the spot where the Walt Whitman Library and P.S. 67 school building nearly touched walls.
That Something-Special was a celebration of impending upgrades and programming additions to the Walt Whitman Library branch, specifically as they relate to children’s library experience. Specifically, the improvements include:
- A designated children’s librarian
- A separate/designated children’s sectionArt programming
- Literacy programs
- Additional children’s books
For eight-year-old Jaylen Cabiness, this means that grownups won’t be using all the children’s computers, and he and his friends and classmates will have a safe, quieter space to read and do homework.
Also important, he told us, is the addition of brighter lights in both the reading rooms and the downstairs rooms. “It’s been too dark and is scary downstairs,” where the children’s bathroom was — it has now been moved to the first floor.
And none of these upgrades would have been possible if not for the sustained, years-long advocacy by parents at P.S. 67 and the surrounding neighborhood, as well as organizing and petitioning support from nonprofit StudentsFirstNY.
“As a parent, I believe these steps will certainly help our children learn,” said Ana Mena. “This library is simply not just a building with books; it plays an important role in the fabric and identity of our neighborhood. I want that identity to be an example of the values we hold for education and our kids.”
Fellow parent Dorian Muller, who is also StudentsFirstNY’s Fort Greene chapter president, echoed that sentiment, calling the library the “centerpiece of the community” and the natural complement to “the rich history of Fort Greene.”
The rally’s location at the meeting point of the school and the library’s small Carnegie building was also intentional.
As P.S. 67 Parent-Teacher Association Co-President Patrick Cabiness — Jaylen’s father — noted, “they say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, this is the village.
“I look forward to more collaboration with the school and more library functions at the school,” said Cabiness. “Once we accomplish [these things], we can focus on something else important.”