WriteNowblog.com: news and musings about whatever seems interesting at the moment

by Jacqueline Watts
editor@baltimoreguide.com

Saturday, the last day of the Highlandtown Branch of the Pratt Library, was “nice and steady all day,” said branch manager Anne Stepney. There were a couple of teenagers pecking away on the computers and a couple of adults browsing the stacks, so there was plenty of time to chat.
The tiny Highlandtown Branch—the only one smaller was the Washington Village Branch—consistently ranked second or third citywide in circulation per square foot, a stat I thought was mainly due to the bus bench sitting right outside the entrance. I was probably wrong on that. The reason was probably Miss Anne.
She has been branch manager forever—well, 15 years, which is close enough in this world—and she knows most of her customers well. She is also one of those people who takes the phrase “goodwill to all” seriously.
So we talked about the people who have come and gone through the Highlandtown branch through the years. She has watched children grow up and grownups age. Some people have died or moved away, and she misses them all. Those 15 years were great fun for her—you can tell by the way she talks about the people and the times.
The major challenge for the new Southeast Anchor Library, which will open on May 14 two blocks down Eastern Avenue, is to create the kind of community that Miss Anne created in that little storefront up at Highland Avenue.
Fortunately she will be there to help. She’s going to head up the adult services at the new library, so if you go in the front door and head through the atrium toward the south side of the building she will be there somewhere. If she is not there check the computer lab on the second floor.
If you have passed by the Highlandtown branch and seen some people in there even though the library’s closed now, those are members of the Pratt Library’s circulation staff going through the books to see which ones they want to move to the new library and which they want to store for the book sale.
We leafed through a copy of “Coming Home,” photographer Harry Connolly’s book about the Highlandtown Exchange Club Little League in the early 1990s. “Oh, that’s definitely going to Southeast, don’t worry,” said Miss Anne.
Several of the kids pictured in that book were Highlandtown Branch kids, and one of the boys brought in an article with his picture in it. Miss Anne taped the article to a pillar in the library, where it stayed for years. One day the boy, all grown up, walked into the library and was astounded to see his picture still up. “He was touched,” said Miss Anne. “I thought he might cry.”
Anne Stepney’s “class” at the Pratt Library is starting to retire now. She has been with the Pratt for 32 years. Anne Manning, who also worked at Highlandtown on the last day though she usually is assigned to Herring Run, has been with the Pratt for 37 years. They helped the Pratt, and us, through difficult times, through budget cuts and branch closings and neighborhood decline. We have been lucky to know them.
Movie Time: Will Backstrom, who spent a decade or so fighting unscrupulous property flippers on the Eastside and is now doing it in the private sector as vice president of community reinvestment at Bradford Bank, has a role in a movie—playing Lester Burton, the most hyper-sleazoid unscrupulous property flipper since Snidely Whiplash. The movie, “Judge Smartt,” is produced by the Baltimore Homeownership Preservation Coalition and features many people in the community development biz in prominent roles, but Will’s the only one who gets to ooze, insinuate and chew the scenery in his role.
The film will premiere on Tuesday, April 10, at 6 p.m. at the Creative Alliance, Eastern and East avenues. The showing is free. Hissing is allowed, we think, but it would be bad form to throw fruit.