Mayor Announces New Uses
for Closing Pratt Branches
Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley announced August 14 that the five Enoch Pratt Free Library branches to close September 1 will keep their doors open in new capacities: Four will be turned into community centers and one will serve as the library’s facilities management center.
“We didn’t have the luxury of leaving the buildings unused while we waited for the government process,” O’Malley said in the August 15 Baltimore Sun. “These branches will continue to be a safe haven for kids.” The city will lease the buildings for one year to such nonprofit community groups as Education Based Latino Outreach, the Girl Scouts, Head Start, and Baltimore Reads.
Critics called the solution a quick fix because the buildings need $2.47 million in repairs. “Where’s the money going to come from so they’ll be viable for long-term use?” asked Mitchell Klein of the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now.
The mayor’s office said the new tenants, who plan to move in by October, had walked through the buildings and found them acceptable.
Posted August 20, 2001.
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