The Allerton Library showed off its newly expanded teen center Wednesday with a craft and pizza party where kids and teens painted with 3D brushes, made their own buttons and hopped on the microphone in a recording studio.
Now, because of the expansion, teens and tweens have space to learn to use a 3D printer, record and edit audio in the new multimedia studio, and attend photography workshops—all while getting the help with school, college and career prep that the library on Barnes Avenue already offered.
A donation from Evan Chesler, who is Chair Emeritus of the library’s Board of Trustees, made the expansion possible. Chesler grew up in the neighborhood, going to the Allerton Library to study and hang out with friends. He credited Allerton Library with setting him on a path to success.
“ I became a lawyer,” Chesler said. “I became the chairman of a big law firm, but I remembered what I learned in this building and what this building did for me and what the library did for me.”
The expansion of the Allerton Library Teen Center is part of a larger initiative at the New York Public Library called Teens 360º which aims to support New York City teens with resources, programs and a fun, safe space to hang out.
Teens and kids at the Allerton Library Teen Center had fun on Wednesday. Andre Jackson, a kid who said he spends nearly every day at Allerton Library, sat at a table learning to make buttons. The library had all kinds of graphics kids cut out and a library staff member pressed the images onto a button that kids can pin on their shirts or backpacks.
“You can use computers, you can draw, you can read,” Jackson said. “You can do a lot.”
Bronx teen Cordae Nichols and his friends spent much of the party in the recording studio, which had a microphone set up and a person using producing equipment to help the teens record music. Nichols said he doesn’t often use the Allerton branch of the library, but that he goes to other libraries throughout the borough. This was his first time seeing a Teen Center in the public library.
“I think it’s good to let kids and teens know that they have a place where they can go and learn, make new friends, study and take part in their hobbies,” Nichols said.
After exploring all the Teen Center had to offer, teens, kids and parents gathered to enjoy pizza. The Allerton Branch manager Manuel Martinez, who led the day’s festivities, said the branch is committed to giving Bronx teens a safe space to learn and get creative.
“ It’s really about the teens here,” Martinez said. “We want for them to celebrate and to enjoy the programs and the activities that we have. In addition to that, we want to create awareness of what programs and resources that are available to them.”
College freshman Nuzhat Ahmed enjoyed the programs and resources she found at the library so much that she became a support tutor at the Allerton Library’s after school program. She said that the tutoring she got from the library in high school helped her at a time when she was worried about figuring out her future in the midst of a global pandemic.
Ahmed said the NYPL’s free Intensive College and Career Access Network (ICCAN) helped her get one-on-one guidance about college and planning for her future. She is now attending Hunter College and studying to become a nurse.
“ That program (ICCAN) helped me so much when I was writing my resume and writing my personal essay for college,” Ahmed said. “And that same personal essay they helped edit was the one that got me into my college now.”
The Allerton Library is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the teen center open those hours. The Library announces special events for things like ceramics, 3D Printing, resume writing and tech time in the Teen Center through its website.
