Folder: S.F. Libraries-SFPL-Main-Exteriors-1960's.
Newscopy: "The Library Commission, with much pride and satisfaction, has just got its hands on $21,500 to clean the outside of the Main Library building. In so doing, it has worked itself into a dilemma involving the scores of loungers who on sunny days like to take their ease on the bench-like ledges at the base of the building on the Fulton st. side. This group is composed of pensioners from nearby hotels who like to gather there to debate the issues of the day. Less happily, interspersed among their respectable numbers, is a scattering of rootless drunks, grimly nursing hangovers or taking an occasional nip from bottles which they discard on the spot when empty. The net effect is not pleasing to the commission and it is thinking about putting in some shrubbery, perhaps with thorns, to make the ledges no longer available."
Newscopy (continued): "We agree with the commission that the newly-spruced up building should be kept that way, but are troubled by the fact that the pensioners, skilled in the art of personal debate and full of reminiscence, have no place else to go. The new Civic Center landscaping, complete with benches, will be finished next January. This would provide the pensioners with a _(?) forum and solarium..."
