Excelsior Branch Library

Before it had a building, the Excelsior branch was a rented store. The Library Department's 1959 activities report explains that the planned branch, like Bayview's, would replace rented premises, and that $60,000 was allowed in the 1960-61 budget to buy a site; the commission chose the south-west corner of Mission and Cotter Streets as the best location. Its minutes carry the purchase itself — a resolution approving the acquisition of the two parcels selected for the permanent branch, and a supplemental request of $18,715 when the allowance fell short. The building that followed, opened in 1967, is described in the November 2000 branch library bond proposal as a single-storey brick-and-stone structure of about 8,302 square feet at 4400 Mission Street, serving the Excelsior District and part of Bayview Hunters Point. Its renovation was permitted in 2004 at $2,223,217, for seismic and disabled-access upgrades and improvements to the structural, mechanical and electrical systems. The reopening was a neighbourhood affair: the Library Commission heard from the co-chairs of the Excelsior Neighborhood Campaign, who had raised money for the branch's furniture, fixtures and equipment, and who invited the city to the reopening on 9 July.