Roberta Frank (left), Oscar Palencia and Mary Hopf welcome you back to the library.
This editor visited the Palisades Temporary Library on Saturday, February 7 at 861 Alma Real “that has reopened on the ashes” of the former library.
The town’s library burned during the 2025 January Palisades Fire. Now, there have been two portable buildings put on the site of the former library parking lot.
One of the buildings houses the “temporary” library, the other building has a room that can be used for community and other meetings.
The library, with familiar faces Mary Hopf, Robert Frank and Oscar Palencia, is open from 1 to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday (closed holidays).
This editor loves mysteries and had read that Anne Cleves has a new book. When I tried to order it from the Palisades Library to have it sent from another library, there was a pleasant surprise. This library has been stocked with books that are high on all Los Angeles library patron’s lists. The book “The Killing Stones,” brand new, was on the shelves.
Palisades residents will have the first chance to check out all the “highly-sought” after novels. One resident joked, “although our homes burned, we have the perk of getting the most sought books before the rest of the city.”
There is also a developing children’s area, some young adult books, as well as adult novels. There is no book drop available and no parking, but there is ample street parking available.
There is a nook for kids in the temporary library.
Many may remember that there was a fire in the Palisades Library because of an arcing electrical light on October 8, 2020. An automatic fire alarm went to Fire Station 69.
When firefighters arrived, they went to the roof to make cuts, not only to ventilate the fire, but to pinpoint the fire and stop it from spreading through the space between the metal roof and the wood roof throughout the building.
The sprinklers, which are in sections of the library, were going off in the area where there was smoke — in the children’s section.
Firefighters covered the books with plastic sheeting and shut off the sprinkler system in order to minimize damage.
It took the 30 firefighters about 50 minutes to knock down the fire. Some of the books in the children’s section did receive water from the sprinklers, and the carpet was soaked. But it appeared that the plastic placed by firefighters minimized the damage.
Seven months later, CTN reached out to the City to ask about the timeline for making repairs so the library could reopen.
This editor asked Public Library spokesperson Peter Persic about a timeline for the library repair—would it be three months, six months, a year or longer? He was also asked about the projected cost for the repairs.
Persic responded, “We don’t know the answers to those questions yet, but I’ll let you know when we do.”
That response meant that the project had not even gone out to bid yet and thus nobody knew when construction might actually begin.
The library eventually reopened in late December 2021.
Many Palisades residents have supported the idea that the “new” library should be built through a public/private partnership, which would allow greater input from residents about construction, design and needs. And possibly be constructed and opened sooner.
CTN reached out to L.A. Mayor Karen Bass by email and asked if she would support that partnership, like she did for the Recreation Center. She did not respond, yet, when she does the story will be updated.
This was among the hearts put on a bulletin board by patrons.
(Editor’s note: FireAid gave the Library Foundation of Los Angeles $250,000.)