Chinatown Branch Library

The Chinatown branch is, in the city's own words, "the most used library in the city" — the phrase appears in the Arts Commission's Civic Design Review record, when the Bureau of Architecture introduced the renovation project and noted that a state grant had been received to expand and seismically upgrade the building. A 1982 plan of development had already made the same point in cost terms: Chinatown and Richmond were the two branches where the cost per visit fell to $3.00 or less, against $6.00 or more at Bernal Heights and Glen Park, and Chinatown held the system's Chinese-language collection. The paper trail of the 1990s rebuild is unusually complete. The Finance Committee of the Board of Supervisors released $55,623 for design services in November 1992 and $149,746 for the renovation in March 1993; the library twice encumbered $10,000 with the Arts Commission for the project's art-enrichment component; and the Budget Committee released $22,110 of 1988 library bond funds for asbestos abatement. The 1977 Chinatown neighborhood improvement plan had listed completing the branch's community space among the district's community-facility goals. The building, listed and dating from 1921, is being renovated again under a $19 million permit issued in 2024, designed to a LEED Gold rating.