Its the guy sleeping at the foot of the book case.
A couple months back, I posted about the boondoggle that is Seattle’s new downtown public library. The building is of such a “New Age” design, that people couldn’t find what they were looking for, and some folks were even getting lost among the stacks. The city had to hire a “Wayfinder” to design signs in order for folks to navigate the damn place.
But with Jack Frost now making his way around town, a goodly number of the people in the library aren’t there to look for reference materials.
As the sky darkened and the rain blew sideways, Tiberious Shapiro tucked into the Central Library, his favorite place to pass the hours before the homeless shelters opened. He picked up a paperback and escaped into a Harlequin romance.
Around him were dozens of hard-edged, solitary men. There was bushy-bearded Kevin, who slept in a park; the mohawked regular who panhandled for beer money; a young man who slapped his head with a magazine; an old man who strode in with a garbage bag rustling around his shirt.
For them, Seattle’s renowned downtown library is more than architectural dazzle and literary splendor. It is a harbor from autumn and winter and an oasis from an increasingly wealthy and unwelcoming downtown.
“I’ll sit here and let the day’s stress come down,” said Shapiro, who is 38, thin, toothless and scraped up.
Because wondering where your next hit or beer is coming from is so much more stressful than having a steady job where you have to perform to earn money.