On the Closing of the Mason Square Library Branch:

"... Carvalho, Lee, and Emily have abandoned the library's commitment to the Mason Square area and all the work that Ann Curran, Bettye Webb, Ms. Humphries, and I did to make it an oasis in such an impoverished area. Now, the Association does not have a person of color above a grade 8* in the whole system. I drive down Monroe Street now (near Mason Square Library) and see hoards of kids skipping school in the middle of the day, see open drug dealing and other things that break my heart. I watched last summer when the Association would not fix the air conditioner (obviously stalling because they didn't want to spend money to fix it) at the so-called newly renovated M.S. and young women would walk to the library pushing baby carriages and find out that the place was closed because of the heat! I go in there every Friday and noticed that all of the regular kids don't go there anymore. I hope they are not lost to the temptations of the "streets."

* "Grade 8 is kind of a demarcation line between so-called paraprofession and profession. To my knowledge, only one person of color is at the 8 grade presently. Every grade above that has no minority representation. To my knowledge, there has been no person of color at the SMLA above the supervisor grade in upper management ever."

...Reggie Wilson, former supervisor of Mason Square Library