Toronto Reference Library
Toronto is neither my hometown nor where I live now, but it’s a city of significance in my life.
It’s the city where I had my first real job, where I graduated from dorm rooms and illegal sublets to decent apartments, and where I established the rhythms of my adult life. It’s also, not insignificantly, the last city in which I had my own washer and dryer before returning (regressing?) to New York City, land of Laundromats.
Now, I’m a tourist in Toronto again. Though one of my brothers and many of my friends still live here, the easy familiarity of this place is slipping from me. I recently went to one of my favorite restaurants, only to find it closed. I got off on the wrong subway stop when trying to visit the AGO. My fluency with shortcuts and side streets is fading.
But one part of the city that remains fresh in my memory is the corner of Yonge and Bloor, where downtown and midtown meet. For two years, I worked at an ad agency here, getting to know the city in snatches of time between meetings or while walking home from work. On slow days, I’d head south to browse now-shuttered Eliot’s Bookshop, wander the area’s warren of underground malls, or bring my laptop to Balzac’s on the ground floor of the Toronto Reference Library. The library itself became another one of my midday refuges. Though just a block from my office, it felt a world away: quiet rather than chaotic, comforting instead of agitating.
Last week, I went back to the library, for a quick trip down memory lane. I don’t have a Toronto library card anymore (and am more of a book buyer than borrower anyway), so this trip was 100% pure nostalgia. Which, I now realize, is perhaps a strange way to feel about a library that’s more jolie-laide than cozy or charming. But hey, I can’t help how I feel!
The Toronto Reference Library was designed in the late 70s to hold 1.2 million books, but is now home to 4 million volumes. The building’s design includes a huge center atrium lit by skylights and was – as an eager front-desk employee told me – inspired by the hanging gardens of Babylon (I doubted this, but Google confirms it!) It also has one of the world’s largest collections of work by Arthur Conan Doyle, kept in a rare-book area way off the beaten path on the library’s fifth floor. In addition to being a destination for readers, researchers, and fans of The Weeknd, it also seems to be a respite for Toronto’s elderly, homeless, and disabled (or maybe I’ve just watched too many promos for The Public?)
Now that I’m back in New York and back at work, I’m reminded of how nice it is to have a library near your office to escape to every once in awhile. Epiphany Library, here I come!
