Just before the steps leading down to Stockton’s central library, Amanda Martin and her four children snapped a selfie to mark their last visit this year.
On the drive over, Martin told her kids about all the different stages of the library she had known — from an upstairs café to the installation of a fantasy-filled mural she admires every time they visit for story time.
“I’m trying to take these mental snapshots,” said Martin, who later walked through the children’s section as her kids tagged along. “I know it’s going to be different, so (I’m) just preparing for that.”
Stocktonians like Martin and her children filled the city’s largest and most visited library branch, formerly known as the Cesar Chavez Main Library, on Friday — its last day before closing for an estimated three-year, $15 million renovation project.
The renovation is the first major upgrade to the facility since 2004. It is expected to include HVAC and earthquake safety improvements.
Already this year, the city moved to cover up the name of the library, which first opened in September 1964. It had been rebranded in 1994 to honor farmworker icon Cesar Chavez.
But after a New York Times investigation revealed that Chavez had sexually abused and groomed young girls and had raped Dolores Huerta, a Stockton native who helped found the United Farm Workers union, the City Council voted unanimously in April to remove the civil rights leader’s name from public view.
At the time, the city also approved the creation of an ad hoc committee to decide whether to eventually rename the building.
In 2023, when a $10 million grant for the library renovation was announced, a former city official said aesthetic updates to the building were also planned, including a possible change to the interior layout.
Before getting approval for the grant, the city had to put up $5 million for the project. That money was to be allocated through Stockton’s Measure M.
City officials have yet to publicly share more about the yearslong renovation, including how they plan to support residents who rely on the library’s day-to-day services. In a call with Stocktonia on Friday, city spokesperson Tony Mannor said more information “will be released as it becomes available.”
Staff at the central library are being reassigned within the city’s Community Services Department, which oversees Stockton’s public library system, Mannor said.
While the renovation is set to reshape the library for the better, the temporary closure marks a turning point for some patrons.
Kenyia Reed remembers when the library, at the center of the city’s once-bustling civic plaza, was the “place to be.”
Story time and the occasional animal show filled her childhood summers at the library, just a short three-block walk from her home in midtown’s Magnolia District. But more than anything, Reed said she remembers spending hours on the floor of the library’s children’s section, reading.
After a few years away, Reed recently returned to Stockton to find landmarks that once drew hundreds of people — like the former YMCA and a bowling alley-turned-teen center — now empty.
On Friday, she learned the library would become another of those empty shells — at least for a time.
“I did not know until today,” said Reed, 47. “So my question is: How many people don’t know? … How many people are going to be surprised when they show up to come to the library and ta-da! ‘Guess what? We’re closed.’ ”
Like Reed, Gregory Martinez learned about the library’s closure Friday. At St. John’s Episcopal Church, three blocks south of the library, he sat beneath the shade of a tree, waiting for his phone to charge at the church’s four-port charging station.
The station overheats, Martinez said, if even one other device gets plugged in.
And come Monday, Christine Greaney, who regularly staffs the church’s free laundry service for those experiencing homelessness, said the charging area will likely get swamped further after more people discover the library’s closure.
While Martinez has used the Main Library as a place to charge his phone, his biggest reason for going was to “find information,” something he has done since his days as a student at Delta College.
The library, Martinez said, has always been “a very resourceful thing” — these days for catching up on the latest news.
About 30 minutes before the doors closed Friday, Katherine Schick walked out with a stack of sci-fi books. She had come to return another bunch of reading materials, including a pocket-sized Romanian language book she took on a trip abroad.
When she arrived, Schick noticed a larger-than-normal crowd, with most gathered in the community room for a farewell ice cream party. At the front of the room, gold-lettered balloons spelled out a hopeful message: “Not goodbye” but “See you later.”
For Schick, it’s the library’s proximity that she’ll miss most.
“This has been my branch,” said Schick, who lives a mile away.
In the library’s final minutes before closing, Juanita Velasco tried to scribble down more than 14 years of memories onto a small slip of paper, including multiple stops for craft events during her breaks from delivering for DoorDash.
“I’m going to need another one,” she jokingly told a librarian nearby.
Velasco’s note joined others mounted on a poster resembling a library book checkout slip, where patrons were asked to share “moments worth remembering.” One note, already tucked into a pocket sleeve, was written in black Sharpie and read: “My heart broke the day the library doors closed.”
The Central Library, Velasco said, was the place where she found her people, including a librarian who made her a pair of 3D-printed hummingbirds and tucked them away in the library for Velasco to find.
“It’s not so much about the books,” she said. “It’s more about the community and the people that I’ve come to know on a day-to-day basis and just been entrenched in my life.”
When the doors finally closed, Velasco and others lingered a little longer on the steps facing Oak Street. Outside, she pulled one crying visitor into a hug before the two parted ways.