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| Original Logan Heights Branch Building |
Logan Heights is the only branch library located in central San Diego, a region commonly considered to be bound by Balboa Park to the north, the Bay to the West, Southeast San Diego to the east, and National City to the South. Urban and working-class from its beginnings in the early 20th century, the area has one of the highest concentrations of Latino populations in the city, at 89.4% (City of San Diego, 2009). The library certainly serves a reflection of these demographics; there's a large section on the second floor dedicated to materials in Spanish, and most of the signs and directories in the library are written in both languages.
Historically, Logan Heights and Barrio Logan, which is located directly south of Logan Heights, played an important role in the Chicano Civil Rights Movement. Barrio Logan is the home of Chicano Park, a center of Latino protests and cultural renaissance in the 1970s. Chicano Park is only a mile from the Logan Heights library, and in one of its final acts in office, the Obama administration designated Chicano Park a National Historic Landmark.
This branch is the largest that I've visited so far. Additionally, if memory serves, it's the only two-story branch that is truly two stories, in the sense that there's no balcony or terrace that connects the two floors. I suspect the design of distinction between the first and second floors was intentional. The first floor has one of the largest children's sections I've seen in a branch, and the building was probably designed to keep the noise level down on the second floor. It makes sense that the branch would have such a large children's area; there's five different elementary and middle schools located within about a half-mile.
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