The Girl Who Lived in the Library

St. Agnes Branch Library

Link to December 6 New York Times article, "About New York: Stoking the Furnace, and a Love for Books".

Excerpt: When Sharon Washington says she grew up with books, she is speaking literally: Her father, George King Washington, was a library custodian, a job that for much of the 20th century included shoveling coal into the furnace at all hours.

It came with an apartment, and a world of remembered magic for the little girl who grew up in the library, an only child. “It was the books, of course, but it was also my father, working on the furnace, feeding the dragon that ate the coal,” said Ms. Washington, 50 and a successful actor, shown above with her father in 1963. “I remember the coal truck deliveries.”

The coal sluiced down a chute next to the furnace. The pieces sparkled with blackness. Her father — a long, lean man — had a shovel nearly as tall as himself. She would sneak downstairs to watch him wield the shovel and spin the ashcans to the curb. “The family mantra was: Don’t let that furnace go out,” she recalled last week.