The East Library building is almost demolished, so we went to say our goodbyes today.

The plans for the new library look really awesome, but I can’t help to feel a bit wistful. After all, this is the library where I went from Curious George to Judy Blume to Sylvia Plath to "What To Expect When You’re Expecting." 

This is the library where I got my first library card, where I clandestinely smoked cigarettes on the benches in the back of the library before my shift at the movie theater and where I worked next door for five years in OnMilwaukee.com’s former East Side digs.

Like you, perhaps, I watched the library switch from card catalogs to computerized systems; from inky date stamps to receipts; from people to machines at the check-out counter.

My kids got their first library cards here, too. (They still have these bright yellow cards, their practically illegible names scrawled on the backs.) And like me, they spent many summers in the Super Reader program.

There is an auction coming up where some of the library’s furniture will be available, but that’s not really the kind of souvenir I’m looking for. I have a brick from the Sydney Hih building as well as a piece of the yellow Unicorn door, thanks to an OnMilwaukee.com reader who sent it to me in the mail.

I didn’t take a souvenir from the rubble today, but when I think about the impact this funky little library had on me – despite that seemingly-always-in-use women’s bathroom door key and the so-so kids’ section – I think I might have to go back and grab something.

Why aren’t memories enough for me?