In South L.A. this week, residents of Florence-Firestone celebrated the opening of a new library on Compton Avenue. Students from neighborhood schools poured into the building following a ribbon-cutting ceremony — this after years of waiting for a permanent location.
The new site is the long-awaited replacement of Florence Library, which was demolished in 2019 to build affordable housing.
Florence-Firestone is an unincorporated community next to Huntington Park and South Gate. The neighborhood falls under the oversight of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors.
Residents were initially told that the new housing complex would include a 10,000 square foot library. Now-former board supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who represented the neighborhood, then authored a motion to revise those plans, saying the library would be better housed elsewhere.
Local residents rose up in protest against the move. More than 7,000 of them signed a petition to save Florence Library. In a section titled “Reasons for signing,” Cecilia Sandoval wrote:
Ashley Orona and Yanel Sáenz are UC Berkeley graduates who were raised in the area and returned home after graduation. They co-founded a grassroots community group called Juntos Florence-Firestone Together to fight for the library.
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