A letter writer in today’s Post responds to Marc Fisher’s Aug. 5 column on the plight of the D.C. public libraries, where he supported a plan to sell the old Martin Luther King Library downtown and move the library into the old convention center. The writer notes the proposal would create a “much smaller” library located “under a hotel” and she says “Any proposal to revitalize the city’s libraries must focus on investing in neighborhood branches and on developing a more community-oriented approach to services. “

The letter writer, Martha Saccocio, is identified as the president of the “Friends of Tenley-Friendship Library,” one of the branches slated for reconstruction. Notably, Fisher’s August 5 column contains a section where he described how a dense mixed use development containing a new library near the Tenleytown Metro was nixed by NIMBYs in lieu of a design more fitting a “hamlet in Idaho”:

But this mayor caved to a handful of change-averse NIMBYs who pretend that they live in Mayberry R.F.D. The mayor’s planning office has given in to a loud minority, giving up on turning Wisconsin Avenue into the vibrant, dense corridor it should be.

Regardless of the controversy, DCist notes that the MLK Library at Ninth and G streets in Northwest is the only Ludwig Mies van der Rohe-designed building in the District. It has been considered one of Mies’ most public buildings anywhere. Though it is generally derided by locals for being impersonal.