By Frederick Melo | March 17, 2014

The Arlington Hills Public Library closed Saturday, ending the long career of one of the city’s historic Carnegie libraries — or so many residents thought.

On Wednesday, the St. Paul City Council will vote on a $1-per-year, 15-year lease agreement with a St. Paul couple intent on reopening the 1105 Greenbrier St. building as the “East Side Freedom Library,” a private collection of materials related to labor, immigration and African-American, Asian-American and Latino history.

The building, about 7,900 square feet, would be open to the public, although the materials would not be available for checkout.

Peter Rachleff, a former Macalester College labor historian, is establishing the East Side Freedom Library as a board-driven nonprofit with his wife, Beth Cleary, chairwoman of the college’s theater and dance department.

He said many descendents of Swedish, Norwegian, Irish and German immigrants “feel lost in their own neighborhoods” as job centers close and their streets become more racially diverse because of an influx of black, Latino and southeast Asian immigrants. He is seeking to build bridges between the generations and between ethnic groups.

“Labor is my real love,” said Rachleff, who has lived on the East Side for 15 years. “The East Side is a working-class community, and a lot of St. Paul’s labor movement grew out of the East Side. I feel like I have been training students for over 30 years at Macalester to do this kind of work. Now I want to do it myself.”

Rachleff hopes to court specific collections, including Hmong written and historical materials, and to host play readings, among other activities.

“I would like to teach teenagers how to do oral history interviews and to interview seniors,” he said. “We want to have people tell stories to diverse audiences. I am convinced that the more people hear stories, the more they realize what they have in common.”

The overall goal of the library, according to the official lease agreement, is “to organize and present programs that provide participants with a larger historical context through which to understand their own and their neighbors’ experiences, and the skills to express and share their stories with each other. Through these materials and programs to build bridges among the many groups who call the East Side home.”

The lease would begin une 1 and expire April 30, 2029.

The Arlington Hills library was built in 1917 with money donated by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.

Regular library operations will open May 22 in the city’s new $14 million community center at Payne and Maryland avenues.

Rachleff envisions a close working relationship with the new community center and the St. Paul Public Library system.

“We want to contribute to the community that we live in,” he said. “We feel that learning and books and art — because we also see art as an important part of our project — we think that all of this can contribute to not only the individual’s success, but we can also use (it) as a way to build bridges among the distinct racial and ethnic groups that call the East Side home.”

City Council member Dan Bostrom, who represents that area of the East Side, likes the library idea.

“I think this is going to be a really good deal for the folks going in there, and also for the community,” he said.

Frederick Melo can be reached at 651-228-2172. Follow him at twitter.com/FrederickMelo.

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