It’s the start of a new chapter.
Brooklyn Public Library leaders will close the Windsor Terrace branch on Feb. 1 ahead of a year-and-a-half renovation project, according to a spokeswoman for the system.
The stacks are shuttering in order to let the city’s Department of Design and Construction replace the facility’s aging climate-control system — which, along with the rest of the 1969-built branch, is approaching its 50th birthday, said rep Fritzi Bodenheimer.
The makeover won’t just pertain to the E. Fifth Street reading room’s heating-and-cooling system, however — library leaders also plan to spruce up the space with new shelves, signage, and lighting, in addition to slapping a fresh coat of paint into the decades-old facility, Bodenheimer said.
“With new signage, lighting, and paint, it will be a better experience,” she said.
Once work begins inside the library, patrons looking for a good read can visit one of the system’s rolling bookmobiles stocked with some 6,000 titles, which will park outside the dormant branch from 11 am to 4 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays throughout the closure.
Windsor Terrace residents can alternatively use their library cards to check out books at other nearby branches, including the Kensington Branch at 4207 18th Ave. between Seton Place and Ocean Parkway, the Courtelyou Branch at 1305 Courtelyou Rd. between Argyle and Rugby roads, and the Flatbush branch at 22 Linden Blvd. between Flatbush and Bedford avenues.
The forthcoming closure comes a little more than a year after the Windsor Terrace branch shuttered for roughly a month back in March 2017 during the installation of the reading room’s so-called living roof, which is planted with ornamental grasses that help cool the library in the summer and insulate it in the winter, according to chief book lenders, and cost taxpayers $250,000.
Bodenheimer couldn’t immediately provide a price tag for the forthcoming renovations, which should wrap sometime in the early half of 2020 should the work stick to its planned timeline.
