Chicago

When Mayor Harold Washington died in 1987, several Chicago structures were renamed for him, including a junior college and a Social Security building. But only one edifice bore the mayor's name from the moment its doors opened in October — the Harold Washington Library Center.

The name is appropriate for many reasons. Officials had talked about a new library ever since 1922, the same year Washington was born. The library's Cultural Center was only 25 years old then, but it had already outgrown needs. Despite all the administrations that followed, it wasn't until Washington championed the cause that a dream became reality on South State Street.

That reality was built according to the winning design by Hammond, Beeby and Babka. It has created a powerful, granite structure that draws its inspiration from masterpieces of Chicago architecture and at the same time reflects the city in its sheer glass facade along Plymouth Court.

Mayor Washington was a product and a promoter of the city he loved, but most importantly, Washington loved language. He was a great reader and at any given time had 20 to 30 books checked out of public libraries. His Hyde Park apartment was a repository for scores of books, although he once declined letting a cameraman capture a stack as tall as the mayor. Washington sought to keep that part of himself private, like his love for classical music, perhaps thinking it did not suit the streetwise politician who spoke to the common man. But ironically, he never shied away from using literary images in his speeches or multisyllabic words that sent waves of laughter through his audiences and reporters scurrying for dictionaries.

"He was a very literate man," notes John Duff, commissioner of the Chicago Public Library. Duff, a big man with silver hair, an easy smile and the manner of a raconteur, recently related the story of Washington's decision on the library's size. Some in the mayor's administration argued for a library half the size of what was built. Duff, who had come to Chicago in 1985 from Boston, argued for a size closer to the current 757,000 square feet. He had prepared enough documentation and growth projections to swing Washington to his side. But the coup de grace came, Duff recalls, when the mayor asked him if he had anything to add:

"You know, Mr. Mayor, it was said of Emperor Augustus that he found Rome brick and left it marble."

"I like that," replied Washington.

The late mayor, who praised Chicago as a world-class city, would have heartily approved of the new library with all its superlatives. The Washington Center is the largest municipal library in the United States and the largest open stack library in the world. Its 18,000 square-foot children's library makes it the world's largest for youngsters.

Duff has also become a man of superlatives. In 1981, he became the first chancellor of the Massachusetts Board of Regents under a newly organized system of higher education. At the end of 1985, he became the first nonlibrarian to be Chicago's library commissioner. Something worked because Duff marked his sixth year in office last month. Since the post was created in the 1970s, no predecessor lasted more than three years. Of more political significance,

34/January 1992/lllinois Issues

Duff has lasted under three Chicago administrations, and under Mayor Richard M. Daley he is the most tenured of current city administrators.

Although not a librarian, Duff got the Chicago post mainly because he was a proven administrator, and it was believed that he could deal with City Hall. There's plenty of politician in him, however. Duff has survived by being polite and respectful to aldermen. He can't always promise a new neighborhood library, although the current branch building system is the most agressive program in the country's history, according to Duff. But he always makes time for elected officials and always listens to them. During city council budget hearings, when it's not uncommon for aldermen to mercilessly grill a department head, Duff is treated with respect.

Washington used to host neighborhood forums and bring department heads to answer the public's questions. Duff, a good public speaker, thinks well on his feet and always seems to have an appropriate answer. "Are you sure you're not a politician?" the mayor once asked Duff. "Well," Duff responded, "I did run for Congress in New Jersey once." "I knew there was something about you," said Washington with a laugh.

Sitting today in his modest 10th floor office that faces into the library's Winter Garden, Chicago's newest site for charity galas, Duff ponders the future. "We've got a hundred years or more here with this library," he says. "Our biggest challenge will be to keep the collections up." The current $11 million book budget puts it ahead of the $9 million for the Library of Congress. But neither Duff nor Cindy Pritzker, president of the library's board of directors, are content to rest with the two million books in the collection. A new Buy a Book program, aimed at raising money, collected $13,500 its first week this October.

Although urban legend has it that most foreigners associate Chicago with gangsters, Washington used to say that wasn't true. "When you tell people you're from Chicago, they want to know 'How's Harold?' " If anyone asks you the next time you're on a trip, tell them Harold's passed on. But Harold's library in its new building is very much his legacy and it's keeping Chicago a world-class city.

Manuel Galvan is a private marketing consultant. As a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, he covered Mayor Harold Washington.

January 1992/Illinois Issues/35