Lucy Gellman | February 15th, 2023
Stephanie Hunt will remember jazz performances that filled the whole space and flowed over the stacks. Beverly Richardson will always think of the building as a safe haven for her kids, and thousands of young Dixwell neighbors. For Ms. Ella Smith, it’s where her children, and then her grandchildren, and then her great-grandchildren fell in love with literature for the first time.
It may be empty now, but 200 Dixwell Ave. is full of history.
Saturday night, a few dozen people filtered through the old Stetson Branch Library to say goodbye to the building with a dance party and evening of impromptu story sharing. Two weeks after Black Haven hosted its pop-up festival inside the space, bibliophiles and Dixwell neighbors alike returned to send the building off into its next chapter one last time.
“It’s bittersweet,” said Branch Manager Diane Brown, who has held her position since 2006, and now works out of the new, two-story Stetson Branch Library across the street. “I’m gonna miss this space. There’s a lot of memories here—whole generations of children came through this building.”
For over half a century, the Stetson Branch stood at 200 Dixwell Ave., nestled in a midcentury shopping plaza between a beauty supply store, a pizza place, a smoke shop and a Caribbean restaurant that moved to West Haven last year. If it was an unlikely spot for a library, that never seemed to bother the kids who saw it as a second home, some there every day after school and in the summertime. Outside, a signature mural still beckons with the word R E A D in big block letters.
This spring, it is slated for demolition as the Connecticut Community Outreach Revitalization Program (ConnCORP) begins its work on its $220 million mixed-use development project ConnCAT Place. Patrons have migrated to the new branch just across the street, where Brown still runs near-daily programming and community partnerships with a small staff.
Saturday, dozens came back into the old building, pointing out the phantom bookshelves, now-absent computer stations, bare walls and the weathered spots on the carpet where musicians once played. In the center of the room, a neat black-and-white tile stage doubled as a dance floor. Friends reminisced about all-ages music shows and sun-soaked summertime festivals between those walls, decades of history unwinding between them.