VISITORS OF THE FLUSHING LIBRARY ARE STILL CONFUSED BY ITS CLOSURE

The Queens Public Library in Flushing, with its numerous windows, is an eye-catching building. It boasts many programs, including English classes, job readiness classes, and GED prep courses. Like all city libraries, it closed when the Covid-19 pandemic hit in March 2020 — but while other libraries in Queens reopened in July, this one did not.

City Council candidate John Choe, who has been serving the Flushing community for more than a decade, calls the library’s current status “a tragedy.”

“The Flushing branch of the Queens Library is the highest circulating library branch in the United States,” he said. “Which means that it's utilized quite extensively by people in our community.”

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Junjie Chen, a 30-year-old web developer who came to the library last week to use its printers, calls the situation “confusing” and “frustrating.” 

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The branch was used as a Covid-19 vaccination site until the HVAC system shut down in May.

In an e-mail exchange, the Queens Public Library Director of Communications Elisabeth de Bourbon, explains that they are still “working on identifying a temporary HVAC solution” as well as installing a second elevator.

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Going to the other locations in Flushing takes at least another 20 to 30 minutes by bus, he pointed out.

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Most programs offered by the library are now offered online such as the Tai Chi classes, bilingual story time and cultural programming. The Flushing Adult Learning Center also has their programs online, says Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska, Deputy Communications Director of the Queens Public Library, in an e-mail.

The only signs that indicate that the library is not open for business are the locked doors, the empty lobby and the yellow signs announcing in various languages that the building was being used as a Covid-19 vaccination site.

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Patrons and visitors still try to enter, only to be disappointed by its locked doors and the realization that the building that’s been so central to the community may not return for a long while.

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Daniel Pang, 30, and Kemi Olorunniwo, 25, have never visited this particular library before and were both looking forward to seeing what it offered.

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“Knowing that this is a very immigrant-heavy community, I feel like that’s more necessary than ever,” Pang, a graduate student from Brooklyn, said.

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“To have it closed is kind of like you’re missing out of a taste of the community,” says Olorunniwo, a nurse and book lover visiting from New Jersey.