North Park

I've been to the North Park branch library many times, and it's generally one of the busiest branches I've been to so far, especially in the afternoons. Located just a couple blocks off of University Avenue, the library has a fairly convenient location for anyone living in the Mid City area, and it's proximity to the 805 Freeway mean that thousands of people pass by it every day.

The 8,000 square foot structure was originally constructed in 1959, and while it has a sort of 60s architectural feel, neither the exterior or interior of the building seem in any way outdated. The branch is one of the libraries on the city's docket to be replaced with a bigger structure, but no concrete plans for that building or its location are in the works.

The library has a single-room layout, but different parts of the library are divided by tall bookshelves, and the somewhat irregular shape of the building creates lots of quiet and isolated nooks for reading or studying.



Around the late 19th and early 20th centuries, North Park began to be developed as a suburban community residing, as its name suggests, north of Balboa Park. San Diego hosted two World's Fairs at Balboa Park in the 20th century: the Panama-California Exposition in 1915,  and the California Pacific International Exposition twenty years later. By the 1950s, when the North Park library was founded and many small businesses popped up in the area, the neighborhood began to take on a more urban feel. Today, North Park is a diverse place, with microbreweries, restaurants, coffee shops, corner stores, and apartment complexes just blocks away from old Craftsman-style homes and public parks.