Carded at the Library

What’s that old saying? “Unless we know a historian, we’re doomed to repeat it?” Something like that, anyway. Well, I am lucky to have a historian friend, Christina. When she recently told me she had helped put together an exhibit called “Driving for Justice: The New York Taxi Workers Alliance Records,” I was very eager to see it. But when she explained that it was on display at the Tamiment Library, within New York University’s Bobst Library, my blood ran cold. History was indeed repeating itself. Not to mention the burrito I’d had for lunch.

You see, Bobst is NYU’s main library, primarily for the use of its students, faculty, and staff. But there are a couple of other methods to gain access—and I’ve known this all too well since I was a very young man. I was a new employee at a prominent children’s publishing company, and was assigned my first-ever freelance writing assignments for a history magazine. (There’s that word again!) Al Gore was still working out the kinks of the Internet, so when there was research to be done, the library was the place to go. And nearby Bobst had a vast collection of old newspapers on microfilm.

As luck would have it, Tod-with-one-D who worked on the history magazine was a card-carrying “Friend of Bobst Library.” By borrowing Tod’s card, I could come and go at Bobst as I pleased. (For Tod, I later served as a buffer for a floor buffer he’d borrowed from the family of his ex who was then my “current”—but that’s a story for another time.)

Then came a day when… you know, I don’t exactly remember. Tod wasn’t around? Information was needed quickly? Whatever the reason, editor Elizabeth told me of the other way to get into Bobst Library: by requesting entry to the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. The “internationally-known center for scholarly research on Labor and the Left” is open to the public. Power to the people, right?

So the plan was: Ask to see the labor collection, and then quietly sneak over to the microfilm area. Now, if you’ve never been inside Bobst Library, picture a giant cube, with the books on multiple floors around the edges—leaving a massive empty space in the middle of the building. On one side is the entrance and security desk. You must cross a huge, wide-open lobby to reach the elevators on the building’s opposite side. The labor library is on the 10th floor; microfilm was in the basement.

I passed through security with ease, and crossed the floor to the elevators. But staring at the panel within, I fell into a panic: There was no button for the basement. What to do, what to do? I took a quick look around the back of the first floor, and innocently asked a fellow library-goer, but the answer was becoming clear. The only entrance to the basement was via a separate staircase at the front of the building, not far from the security desk.

I took the elevator up to the 10th floor. I lingered there very briefly, and then went back down to the ground floor. OK, shouldn’t be a problem. The place was crawling with students, and I wasn’t very far out of college myself. The elevator doors opened, I took a deep breath, and with my head down, began diagonally crossing the giant lobby.

“Where are you going?”

It was a security guard, the same one I had dealt with upon entering. I had only made it three-fourths of the way across.

“I was… uh… going to the…”

She would have none of my hemming and/or hawing.

“I saw you! You went up to the 10th floor, and then came back down here!”

Damn glass walls.

“You are only supposed to be in the labor room, on the 10th floor.”

“I… uh… didn’t… know? It’s.. my… first… time….”

Sufficiently shamed, I skulked back across the lobby, pressed the up button, pressed the 10 button, and soon found myself within the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives. Where I sat in the reading area and sadly skimmed a large volume on Samuel Gompers or some such. I waited the approximate length of time that I assumed someone would need to look up something labor-related before sheepishly exiting the premises.

I don’t remember if I had to visit Bobst again after that, but for quite a while, just walking past the front of the building made me feel like I was going to get yelled at. And that reminded me of when I was a tiny little guy, and we went to some low-end department store. As usual, my folks let me go browse in the toy aisle. But on this particular day, there was another unattended lad also perusing the selection of toy cars. There was one that we were both especially curious about. So my new friend suggested that we open the package and try it out. And he began removing the car from the box! I was completely dumbfounded. Were we allowed to do this? It didn’t seem right, not at all. But it also seemed… awesome. If I recall correctly, the car had a serrated plastic pull-string to rev it up. (If not, then it was the kind where you rolled it back a few times, then let go, and it would speed off ahead.) He tried it, I tried it, and then…

“What are you two doing?”

The store clerk was as incredulous as I had been just a few short minutes before. My instincts had been correct—this activity was frowned upon.

I don’t think we got in any real trouble; I don’t even remember if my parents found out. But each time we went to that store afterwards, I was super nervous about going to the toy section. I was certain that the same clerk would show up, arms akimbo, and exclaim, “That’s the kid who opened the box!” I carry a lot of guilt.

Back at Bobst a couple of weeks ago, there was definitely extra weight behind my “Yes” when the man at the access desk explained that I was only allowed in the 10th-floor labor collection. And I’m pretty sure that the same security guard wasn’t on duty—
it has been more than a few years. The taxi-workers exhibit was incredibly informative and totally interesting; I was really glad I went. And even though I was following the library rules to a T, for some reason I still felt a wee bit guilty in there.

So I was actually glad when, chatting with the very kind labor librarian and getting a bit too animated, she had to politely shush me. A bit of a cliché, but I’ll take penance where I can get it.