Newsday from New York, New York • 38

ttrt iff: 1 1 tt t-ti t-t 1 1 ftf si: trr ft 1 29 5 Brooklyn Main Library Cuts Days For the first time in its 60-year history, Brooklyns fiagship public library branch at Grand Army Plaza yesterday closed it doors on Mondays, a victim of city budget cuts. Since 1941, the Brooklyn central library had kept its doors open on weekdays. Yesterday, many of the estimated 5,000 persons who visit the library on Mondays showed up to find its doors shrouded in black, a 50-foot paperchain, made by schoolchildren, around the front entrance. Those unable to get inside joined an estimated crowd of 500 children, parents, teachers and residents who rallied on the front steps of the library yesterday. Joining the crowd were several elected officials who denounced the citys decision to slash public library funding.

Rep. Mqjor Owens (D-Brooklyn) said it was outrageous that the city saw fit to slash a library budget that counts for less than 1 percent of the total city budget. I am outraged that New York City is balancing part of its budget on the back of the Brooklyn Public Library, he said. Even during the depression our libraries were open. Other officials at the rally included Brooklyn District Attorney Charles J.

Hynes, city Council woman Mary Pinkett and Stanley Hill, executive director of District Council 37. The citys three public library systems have been hard hit by the cuts. From fiscal years 1988 through 1992, the Brooklyn Public Library system stands to lose (10.6-million from its operating budgets, said Donald Kaplan, a spokesman for the Brooklyn Public Library. Fifty-two of the boroughs 58 branches will be open for parts of the day three to four days a week. Only nine branches, in addition to the central library and the Business Library in downtown Brooklyn, will be open on Saturdays.

The central library and the Borough Park branch will be the only sites open on Sundays. Last week, 77 librarians, clerks and other workers in Brooklyn were laid off systemwide because of the cuts. With 50 other jobs lost through attrition, the citys fiscal woes have resulted in a 15 percent depletion in the library 800-member workforce, Kaplan said. City administration officials stressed that the budget cuts have not resulted in the permanent or indefinite closings of any branch of the public library so far. NewsdajrSunn Fariqr the Brooklyn central library yesterday to protest the Monday dosing.

Penny-Wise Choice were more important even, than firehouses. Most of the city has already burned down but our population has risen and those are the people who have to be taught to read." Funny isnt it? You cant get through to people who have these preconceived ideas. When I mentioned volunteers to Brooklyn District Attorney Joe Hynes, he laughed and said it reminded him of a story his sister, who lives on Long Island, had told him about volunteer firefighters in her town who ran around like characters in a Mack Sennett movie while a building burned to the ground. Dont talk to me about volunteers, said Hynes, who once ran the citys Fire Department. Well, theyll come around eventually.

I happen to think the Bubway people were on the right track when they floated an idea to close the subways in the early-morning hours. Theyll be back with that idea soon. Mark my word. Library-goers rally in front Closing a DUGGAN from Page 11 branch library three years ago. Now hes working as a porter-door-man at a Yorkville apartment house and for the first time in his life he says he doesnt have to depend on other people to tell him whats going on.

I still cant read everything, he tells me, but compared to where I was, Im in heaven. I was invited to Grade Mansion last September and got a certificate from the mayors wife. My life has totally changed. This is the kind of tear-jerking stuff the library people give you to make you think that libraries ought not to be made to suffer along with the rest of us. Later in the afternoon they brought in the politicians, including Brooklyn Rep.

Mqjor Owens, a librarian for eight years before he went to Washington. They couldnt get the mayor to come because he was visiting Tel Aviv, the first stop on what used to be called the Three-I tour and was completed in March, 1989. You get what you pay for, said Joe DePlasco, a spokesman for the Transportation Department. The three-span Lincoln Place Bridge is scheduled for a complete overhaul, projected to cost (1.3 million, beginning in September, 1992. The 17-span Bedford Park Bridge is scheduled to be rebuilt in 1994, at a cost of (16 million.

The city banned trucks and buses from the Bedford Park Bridge last October, Ricdo said, but the rules have been ignored, further weakening the bridge. Unfortunately, posting in New York -doesnt guarantee compliance, of Israel, Italy and Ireland. So Owens had Dinkins to kick around and he did, throwing in Bush and Cuomo who he called hypocrites for saying one thing and doing another. For my money, Owens took some awfully cheap shots. At one point, he said that we can build smart bombs but not smart kids.

By this time a crowd of about 200 people had shown up on the steps of the library, carrying signs and banners protesting the library shutdown on Mondays. They cheered, of course, when Owens said that this closing is symbolic of giving up on civilization." What did they expect an ex-librarian to sty? Later, I told the congressman that I thought Bush's idea of volun-teerism just terrific. He looked at me as though I were insane and said something like the first volunteer ought to be put in the White House to replace that Neanderthal. But then he quieted down down and said he thought that libraries Ricdo said. Ricdo said that especially in a time of budget cuts, his agency does not have enough traffic control agents to patrol the Bedford Park Bridge.

Traffic agents have already been assigned to divert truck traffic and hand out fines for violators on other troubled bridges, such as the West Side Highway overpass and the Manhattan Bridge. The problems with the Lincoln Place and Bedford Park bridges come as the dtys Transportation Department is still reeling from a dispute between Ricdo and his former deputy commis-aioner for bridges about the condition Bridge in Bklyn Closing; Bronx One Next? BRIDGE from Page 8 NEW YORK NEWS DAY. TUESDAY. FEBRUARY 5. 1991 of the Manhattan Bridge, which spans the East River from Manhattan to Brooklyn.

Ricdo dedded last September to restore subway service to the western roadway of the Manhattan Bridge, in defiance of warnings from his deputy that the roadway could collapse under the weight of the trains. Service was abruptly discontinued in December when a routine inspection found that a supporting beam under the subway track was within an inch of collapsing. Ricdo later fired his deputy, David Steinberger, saying he was unhappy with Steinbergers management skills. A spokesman for Brooklyn Borough President Howard Golden said Golden accepted the need for the Lincoln Park Bridge closing but was angered that the bridge had been allowed to deteriorate so far. The bridge, built in the 1930s, has never even been painted the most basic form of maintenance, transportation officials said.

The last repairs began in 1987, when the bridge was partially closed so its piers could be shored up with timbers. The work cost.