Today I was quoted in the New York Times Bay Area Section about the Appleton & Wolfard libraries. Four of us were invited to walk around the North Beach branch library with the reporter; Brian Bannon, Chief of Branches, Marsha Maytum, Architect, Howard Wong, Architect and myself. We spent over an hour and a half talking! I walked away wondering how the reporter, Zusha Elinson, was going to condense the conversation down into a "short article." The reporter was most interested in what made the building important, landmarkable. He was not impressed with the "look" of the building calling it "bland" and "non-descript" in his article. However after hearing about its history, he seemed to understand its importance. Just because a building style isn't popular doesn't mean that it isn't important. I think that the mere fact that the building can still get people's blood boiling after fifty years makes it far more interesting, far more important, than any of the others.
