Transcript: Episode 6 - Hidden Spaces and Forgotten Places (Part 2)

Loudspeaker: Good morning and welcome to the Richard J. Riordan Central Library. The library is now open.

Library Patron: So I heard there's a secret room that's, like, as big as an apartment above the rotunda. Is that true?

Sheridan: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Past Due: 100 Years of Central Library, a podcast commemorating the Central Library Centennial. As part of the centennial, we're hosting a variety of events and programs, a special reading challenge, and creating tons of original content for Angelenos to celebrate one of their favorite institutions, the Central Library. For more, visit lapl.org/central100. I'm Sheridan J. Cazarez, a librarian in the Exploration and Creativity department of the Los Angeles Public Library. 

On today's episode, Hidden Spaces and Forgotten Places: Part Two, we're chatting with the Los Angeles Public Library's Building Engineers. The Building Engineers at Central Library take care of all kinds of things from the HVAC system, the plumbing, the lighting, the electrical system, and the maintenance of the physical structure of the Central Library. They're also familiar with the Central Library's many hidden nooks and crannies. Today we're talking with Building Engineer, Jessy Yu. Welcome, Jessy.

Jessy: Thank you for having me.

Sheridan: Yeah. Thanks for coming in. Hey, Jessy, tell us a little bit more about what the engineers do at Central Library.

Jessy: The engineers here work on everything: carpentry, mechanical, electrical, plumbing. Whatever the Central Library needs, it's the Building Engineers that does the work. But whenever we encounter problems that are more complex, or I guess something that we can't handle, we have the GSD [General Services Department] building maintenance from Civic Center. We call them and they come in and help us out. There's electricians there. There's crews for plumbing. So, we have help.

Sheridan: Nice, nice. Um, the Building Engineers here at Central, are you all generalists? Like all of you can do a little bit of carpentry and a little bit of electrical, a bit of plumbing. 

Jessy: Yes. Of course, yeah. Everyone needs to be able to do those because, uh, sometimes there's guys that's going to be on, on shift by themselves, so they have to do it.

Sheridan: Oh, amazing. Uh, Jesse, do you have any favorite secret places in the building?

Jessy: Um, I don't know if you can call that secret. I like the roof. Yeah, it's open space. You can see all the buildings around the Central Library. And when the weather is nice, you know, it's nice up there.

Sheridan: Mhm. How often do you get up on the roof as a Building Engineer?

Jessy: Um, I won't say every day, but often. Often. Yeah. There's a lot of equipment up there. Cooling towers, air handlers, chillers, supply fans. So there's a lot of equipment.

Sheridan: Okay. And all that stuff basically makes it so that the staff and the patrons of the Central Library have a comfortable experience in the building. Jesse, earlier we listed some of the Building Engineers’ responsibilities with systems at Central Library. What are some of the more uncommon or surprising tasks that the Building Engineers perform?

Jessy: Um, for example, for the holiday tree, we help decorate the tree by, uh, we're the ones operating the scissor lift for the people who are decorating the tree. They can go up on the tree and decorate the upper part.

Sheridan: Oh, nice. For any listeners out there. If you ever have visited the Central Library during the holidays, you'll note that in the rotunda there is a massive tree and we wouldn't be able to decorate it without the help of the Building Engineers and, and the scissor lift. So big thanks to the Building Engineers for that. So, Jessy, you've been around as a Building Engineer for a little while. I'm sure you've seen a bunch of new Building Engineers come through. What do you tell new Building Engineers when they first start out? Are there any stories or folklore or myths the Building Engineers like to tell their new co-workers?

Jessy: I haven't had any new hires since I got here. I've been only here for two years. For 15 years I was in City Hall. But I've heard there's a ghost up on the fourth floor in the East Wing.

Sheridan: Hey, a ghost.

Jessy: There's, um, one of the staff was saying, uh, there was a video of a floating head on the fourth floor. So.

Sheridan: Okay. All right. So a floating head on the fourth floor in the East Wing. We might have to revisit that for our, uh, spooky places of Central Library episode. Um, in the Bradley Wing on the east side of the building, what are some of the surprising things that maybe people don't know about?

Jessy: I guess some information would be like—the building is 330,000ft², the east building, but the whole library is 500, I would say 548,000ft², but the East Wing itself is 330,000. And there's actually four floors, right, for the East Wing going down LL1 to LL4, and then first floor going up to the fourth floor but below LL4, there's another level that no one sees. Uh, there's a room you have to enter and then climb back down. It's just like a walkway where you can see the foundation for the Central Library.

Sheridan: This is news. Uh, so before, below LL4, there's LL5, which is completely hidden. 

Jessy: Yeah. 

Sheridan: And it's just the foundations of the building. 

Jessy: Yes.

Sheridan: Do you all ever do any work down there?

Jessy: No. Not really. It's an empty space. You just, uh, inspect it, make sure everything's okay for the building.

Sheridan: Has there ever been anything not okay with the building?

Jessy: Um. Not. No. Everything's good.

Sheridan: Well, good. So you're—we know that Jessy's on the case. Um, what's the strangest part of the building that you've found yourself in?

Jessy: Strangest. Hmm, I guess that's the one. The one in LL5, if you call that LL5. It's dark, no lights.

Sheridan: What's it like going up to the chandelier that hangs above the rotunda? Can you walk us, like, how do you get up there?

Jessy: Okay. Uh. You go up to the fourth floor, using the elevators in the main building. And then there's, um, there's a door going up to that area that's located near the staff women's restroom. It's locked. So you have to go up to the stairs, and then that area will be, like, I'd say, about two floors up.

Sheridan: Okay. So there's a little bit of a rumor that has it that there's an empty room that's about the size of an apartment, kind of on the way up to that area. Is that true?

Jessy: A room before that area? There is a room. It's being used as storage. If that's the area you're talking about. If it's the area that's holding the chandelier, that's a bigger area. It's, like, I'd say, well, the size of the square of the rotunda. It's a bigger area. It has windows on all sides. And then it's an empty space, really. It's just, uh, has the motor that lifts and lowers the chandelier.

Sheridan: For any listeners out there, there is a motor that lifts and lowers the chandelier for cleaning. Uh, and just a special little bit of trivia, during World War II when we were worried about being bombed, uh, because of, you know, uh, belligerence during the war, they actually lowered the chandelier and had it pretty much on the floor so that there wouldn't be any damage in case L.A. was bombed in an act of aggression. So, Jessy, you're saying that there's a big empty room above the rotunda, and the only thing in there is the engine that lowers and raises the chandelier.

Jessy: Yeah. And windows.

Sheridan: Can you take us up there?

Jessy: Yes. Of course.

Sheridan: Great. So now you know a little bit more about the area above the rotunda chandelier at Central Library, a little bit more about the Tom Bradley Wing, the rooftop, and even this mythical LL5 where the building's foundations are situated. To learn more about the building, check out the book Los Angeles Central Library: A History of Its Art and Architecture by Stephen Gee. Next up, we talk with a Librarian in the Business and Economics Department about a fascinating part of their collection. Later in the episode, follow along on our expedition to the hidden space above the rotunda. Stay tuned. For today's library resource, we'd like to highlight the labor movement collection housed in our Business and Economics Department here at the Central Library. And who better to let us know more about this particular collection than the one, the only, the business-minded return guest to our podcast, Danielle Ball. Welcome back, Danielle.

Danielle: Thank you so much for having me. And thank you for the introduction.

Sheridan: Of course, of course. So, tell us more about the labor movement collection. What kinds of topics can be found there? What time period does it cover? Give us the skinny.

Danielle: Okay, great. So we have everything about the working class and their social condition and their struggles, evolution of women in the workforce, history of trade unions, uh, strikes, boycotts. It covers mostly the United States. There is some international focus, particularly European, but it's pretty much the United States. And we have books that go all the way back, covering the colonial era all the way up to, you know, present time.

Sheridan: Amazing. Amazing. For any listeners out there, we've been having labor struggles in this country since the dawn, since the Thirteen Colonies, right? In fact, well, you could venture to say that the foundation of the colonies itself was a labor struggle, but, uh, moving on, I see that you've brought a couple of books here with you today. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about those two?

Danielle: Well, sure. You know, I brought these. I didn't have one particular item that I wanted to talk about. I really wanted to highlight this whole collection because it's really big. It's really amazing. And a lot of people don't know that we have it, including staff. But I had to bring something. And so what I thought I would do is bring these two books that would help highlight the books we have on the contribution of African Americans to the labor movement. So the first book that I have here is a biography. It's by Cornelius Bynum. He's a professor at Purdue University, I think, and this was written in 2011. The title is A. Philip Randolph and the Struggle for Civil Rights. So again, the person that it's written about is A. Philip Randolph. So it's the, “A” initial, he didn't go by his first name, which was, um, Asa, I think that's how it's pronounced, Asa. He went by Philip. So, A. Philip Randolph, so just to tell you a little bit about him, he was born in 1889. So he, in the early 20s, was a young man. He was active in labor organizing and he was elected the president in 1925 to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Have you heard of that union?

Sheridan:I have not. Tell us more about it.

Danielle: Well, I—this could be a whole podcast on its own. So I'm just going to quickly. They were kind of like, I want to say like the first union that was made up of African American workers. Because at the time, a lot of the unions were quite racist and exclusionary. So anyway, they were the porters. They were like—the people that took the train across the country and they slept on the train—the porters were, like, the attendants that took care of them. So they did provide a good way, you know, upper mobility opportunity for—for it was a job that was held exclusively by African American men, and it provided some upward mobility. But, you know, it was—they had a lot of concerns and needed better pay and better conditions and things like that. So he was elected the president of this newly formed union. And he didn't work for the railroad. He wasn't a porter himself. So that was very strategic because then he couldn't be retaliated against by the company, right? So it took like a decade before the company, the Pullman Company, recognized their union and they were able to ratify their first contract that had better wages. 

Danielle: But anyway, he continued on, this A. Philip Randolph, he continued on. That was considered a victory. And it just kind of goes to show that, first of all, we think of the Civil Rights movement as maybe starting in the mid-50s, the modern Civil Rights movement. But really there was a lot of organizing going on way prior to that, decades prior, and also how integral labor is to the Civil Rights movement itself. We kind of forget that, you know, opportunity to have jobs and good pay is part of the Civil Rights movement. So that's what I like about this book. And so it goes into, you know, those early years, the 20s and 30s. But A. Philip Randolph ended up—he kept organizing in the early 1940s. Like 1941, the United States was transitioning into a war time economy. Even before we entered the war, we were kind of ramping up the defense industry and things like that. So, there were suddenly all of these jobs available in the defense industry. And African Americans were excluded from those jobs. So A. Philip Randolph and his allies, their goal was to remedy that. So they went to FDR and he kind of refused to remedy that. 

Danielle: That brings me to my second book, which was written in 1959. And keep in mind that the language in the title is outdated, but it's called When Negroes March: the March on Washington Movement in the Organizational Politics for FEPC, again written in 1959. So, because Roosevelt wasn't doing anything about this discrimination in the defense industry, they decided, Randolph decided he was going to organize a march on Washington, to have 100,000 African American folks come to Washington and march to the White House. Within a week of that march happening, which was, I think it was set for July of 1941, FDR finally caved and signed an executive order and created something called the Fair Employment Practices Committee. So, that opened up defense industry jobs to African Americans, although I'm not a historian, so I don't know how, you know—I'm sure there was still a lot of discrimination going forward with that, but it did not desegregate the military. That was a concession they made. But it—that happened later, a few years later under Truman. Anyway, so when you hear a “March on Washington,” Sheridan, I'm wondering what you think of when you heard that?

Sheridan: Oh, I mean, I think of the Women's March on Washington. I think of the Civil Rights Movement. I mean, it's happened over and over again, right. You know.

Danielle: Right. So, yeah, I mean, the March on Washington in 1963, of course, was where Doctor King gave probably one of the most famous speeches in American history. I Have A Dream, right? So this March on Washington Movement, this was a march that never happened. But it's like 20 years before that march, right? And of course, A. Philip Randolph, he actually was one of the main organizers of the 1963 march. And he gave the opening speech on that day. So again, I just love that these books demonstrate how integral, you know, jobs and labor are to the labor movement—or to the Civil Rights Movement, excuse me. Because we kind of separate those in our minds sometimes, or in our history, we kind of forget about that. And again, we have a lot of books about the African American contribution to labor in our collection. So I just wanted to share those. Both of these are circulating books. They're not rare in any way. Um, although the one is older, but it's, you know, you can still check it out. Yeah. So I wanted to share things that were accessible to people.

Sheridan: Yeah. No, and these are great selections. I think, just, you know, in our struggle for social justice, we forget about labor justice, economic justice, and how those two things really, really are tied together.

Danielle: Well, yeah. And the March on Washington in 1963, it was actually the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. People don't say the full name of that march, but that's what it was. So we kind of forget about that.

Sheridan: Yeah. Great, great connections here. And it just also highlights how Black people have been holding it down for forever. 

Danielle: Right.

Sheridan:  So yeah.

Danielle: Well, and we even have again, just going back to our collection, we have whole books on African American experience in all these different labor unions, like the United Auto Workers and stuff, but also books on domestic workers, you know, African American women who were former slaves working in the laundry industry, in the South. I mean, it just really—our collection really gets into all that. It's awesome.

Sheridan: Yeah. Yeah. So come and check out the labor movement collection here at Central in our Business and Economics department, which is on Lower Level 1 of the library. Danielle, is there anything you want to leave people with as we wrap up this resource highlight?

Danielle: I would just say that in addition to our great print collection, which includes a lot of circulating items and a lot of reference items, there's also a lot of books on that topic through e-media: Overdrive, Hoopla. So, you can check out an e-book or e-audiobook on the topic.

Sheridan: Yeah, great stuff here, hearing about our labor movement collection. Thanks for being with us, Danielle.

Danielle: Thank you so much for having me.

Yolanie: I think my favorite memory has to be when I got into all my colleges, and I would go to the Teenscape and tell whoever was working at the desk where I got into and how I was excited. And it was awesome to share that joy with someone who really understands.

Sheridan: That was Yolanie Cuevas, currently a student at Stanford University, sharing her special memories about the impact Central Library made on her life when she was a high school student in Los Angeles. If you feel inspired by Central Library and want to submit your own story, consider taking part in our Central 100 Community Oral History Project with the recording platform, TheirStory. You can record a short video or audio clip that would be preserved in our archives. If you're interested, the information will be linked in our show notes, or you can visit lapl.org/central100/oralhistory. 

Sheridan: Today we're going to go to the room where the mechanism is to raise and lower the chandelier in the rotunda. So follow along with us and we'll see what we find. So we are a small, ragtag, but incredibly good looking group of librarians following along with Ernie Olivar and Jessy Yu, who are Building Engineers as they take us up to the fourth floor. So we're getting in the elevator, going up to upper level four. This level isn't accessible to the public. We have our administrative offices up here. Our Library Foundation is up here. The Building Engineers have some things up here and then we have meeting rooms as well. So, uh, coming into this room, it appears to be a little bit of a storage room. And then there's a stairwell with a little bit of a Sally port that's going to lead us up to the room with the mechanism. Working a really narrow stairwell. Um. Looks like it's at least quite a few landings to get up to the elevation that we need to be above the rotunda.

Jessy: You can peer inside if you want. 

Celia: Danger!

Sheridan: So there is a "Do not enter: Danger" door. Uh, and if you open it, you can actually see the curvature in the reinforced concrete that makes up the top part of the dome above the rotunda. Uh, there's not really any way to access it. It looks like it's just there to be able to see if there's any cracks or fissures. Uh, but yeah, fascinating stuff. We're looking literally above the rotunda. Hello! Hello! So coming through, you kind of pass through a low sort of arch. And then you actually see the pulley system that raises and lowers the chandelier, surrounded by gaps on all sides that allow you to walk around the indentation where the dome is underneath.

Christina: How often does it get lowered?

Sheridan: That was Christina Rice, Senior Librarian of Central Library's Photo collection.

Jessy: Once a year.

Christina: To clean it?

Jessy: Yeah. for maintenance and just to make sure it's going, you know, still working.

Sheridan: Uh, so from what we can see, the central tower is a big open kind of atrium space. But then on the four sides of it, we see that there is a space that's probably about the size of a studio apartment, maybe a small one bedroom. I could definitely live probably in this space, but I'm kind of a small guy. Um, yeah. So there's four, sort of, small—imagine four small studio apartments surrounding the big tower space, right above level four with lots of natural light because these windows are allowing in light from all four sides which is pretty beautiful. Okay. Directly above the platform where the pulley system is, uh, is a huge opening that actually looks out onto the vertical window slits that exist in the tower. In one of the corners of the room, we have a ladder that is just a metal ladder leading up to a couple of platforms that lead up to further ladders to go up to the pyramid. Um, but if you ever look at the Central Library tower, those tall window slits that are in the tower itself, are the room that we're in currently. So Jessy or Ernie let us know how often do you all go up to the pyramid? Do you ever have anything up there that you need to check routinely? Do you do any cleaning up there?

Jessy: Almost every year because, uh, we do have the lights. We need to change the colors for the lights, like the one we have before. Um, what was that—  

Christina: Like the Dodgers?

Jessy: Yeah, something like that. Dodgers.

Christina: So, you manually change them?

Jessy: You put a plastic film on it to change the lights.

Christina: I had no idea. How scary is it to go up that ladder?

Jessy: Well, I haven't been up there. I have the guys to do it.

Sheridan: That's funny. It's funny. Do you ever go up there, Ernie? Have you?

Ernie: Yeah. Yeah. I've been here maybe three times already.

Sheridan: Are you scared when you're going up there?

Ernie: Yeah.

Sheridan: Yeah. Yeah. You gotta be sure. Gotta be safe.

Christina: I want to go up to the pyramid so bad. And that ladder is so intimidating because it's, like, barely a ladder. It's just a lot of tiny pieces of steel that perhaps my foot will fit on. No, I'm going to come one day, I'm going to dress properly. I'm going to have gripping boots. I'm going to have gripping gloves. I'm going to take a deep breath. I'm going to close my eyes and I'm going to get up there. So, Central 100 is the year that I work up the nerve and hopefully get permission from the administration to go up the ladder.

Sheridan: Yeah. The ladders up to the pyramid look like the ladders that you would take after you sort of are coming down or going up a fire escape. So they're pretty narrow. Um, they're completely vertical. So there isn't even any kind of, like, diagonal to kind of lean on. 

Christina: And they're not like, the steps are not steps. They're just—

Sheridan: They're just little rungs.

Christina: Yeah. It's like, you know, climbing up out of a manhole. Next time we climb! What's in that door? 

Ernie: Roof.

Christina: Um, can we go? Oh. Come on.

Sheridan: On the way back down from the pulley system room. What we found is that we can actually step out onto the roof of the Central Library itself. Uh, currently we're looking out toward the US Bank Tower, but you can see the views are magnificent up here. You can see the US Bank Tower, you can see the Biltmore, you can see the SoCal Edison building, the Bonaventure. I mean, it's pretty amazing. It's pretty hot up here too, though, just because there's nothing to block the sun. But yeah, the views of downtown are elite. Absolutely elite.

Christina: I'm looking at Plato and Dante, two of our seers, and I've never seen them so close. And look at our Light of Learning all the way at the top. Now this is incredible. I never, I've been working at Central Library for 20 years as of this month, and this place never fails to just take my breath away. Thank you.

Sheridan: Thank you. Uh. All right, I just wanted one last thing. As one last thing as we're descending from the room above the rotunda. We just wanted to say a big thank you to Jessy and Ernie, our two Building Engineers, who came with us today.

Jessy and Ernie: Thank you.

Celia: Cheap thrills. 

Sheridan: What an exciting episode of the Past Due podcast. We were able to make an intrepid trek to the area above the rotunda and within the tower. If you'd like to see what it looks like, check the show notes for some photos that we snapped on the way up. And while we were standing within it. This episode of the Past Due podcast was made possible by producer Stella Mittelbach and executive producer Christina Hairston. It was edited by Stella Mittelbach and mixed by Josh Sanchez. I'm your host, Sheridan J. Cazarez with the Los Angeles Public Library. Thanks for listening to the Past Due podcast, and we'll see you at the library.

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