The Library Vault

Underground there live
Surprisingly happy figs
Will the trees bear fruit?

-Brandie, Assistant Director

If you’ve been on one of the Secrets of Russell Library tours, you know that Russell Library has several basements. The first is the A/V area that used to be the basement of the church. The second is the basement under the Lobby and Youth & Family Learning department. It was constructed in the 1980s to connect the then-independent children’s library (housed in a former bank) to the former church. The rooms are connected by a long hallway that run from under the elevator in the Lobby, past the Activity Room, to the end of the building.

One day in November 2022, around the time of the bank flood, a bin filled with dirt and sticks appeared in the basement hallway. Many strange things appeared in that hallway in November 2022, as we had to vacate many staff areas in the old bank building that had just flooded. But this was the only bin with dirt in it. That hallway has no windows and only florescent light. Why would someone fill a bin with dirt, shove sticks in it, and drag it the the library’s basement? All I could figure was that the children’s department was going to use them for a program of some kind. The sticks in the dirt sat there for months.

So imagine my surprise when, come March or so, those sticks suddenly grew leaves. As I stood in the basement one morning, half-asleep over my cup of coffee, staring in bemusement at those new leaves, our Facilities Maintainer, Shane, walked by. He told me that it was actually a fig tree – his fig tree. He had recently sold his nearby residential property, and before it changed hands he had dug up this tree that he had planted there himself in 2005.

In 2005, Shane worked for the Green Street Art Center in the North End of Middletown. One day, he attended a neighborhood party on Ferry Street, which used to be home to many residents of Italian descent. Those homes were in the process of being demolished to make way for the Wharfside Commons apartment buildings. One of the party attendees pointed at a property on the street in the path of destruction. The grounds were full of beautiful fruit trees, including a large peach tree and a fig tree. The attendee told Shane that his grandfather had brought many plants over to the house from Italy, including that fig tree. The fig tree has lived for decades in Middletown.

Shane, an avid gardener, decided to save what he could from the bulldozers. With the help of a construction crane and a friend’s pickup truck, he dug up a 10″ diameter peach tree and took it to his own back yard off of Longworth Avenue. It lived there for twelve years and spawned many peach tree descendants. He also dug up the much-smaller fig tree and planted it near his home. Now that the tree lives in Russell Library’s basement, many staff are waiting to see if it will begin to fruit figs this summer. Perhaps, one day, it will migrate to another location in the library.

Russell Library offers many specimens of plants if you know where to look. It’s a lovely place to watch spring unfold. Our facilities crew, led by Shane, plant and maintain Russell Library’s flora (and sometimes even fauna – but I’ll save stories about the bats for another post). Our beautiful courtyard with its classic Ivy and picturesque, crumbling bricks, falls under their domain. Two peaceful garden areas live on either side of our lobby entrance, complete with beautiful Japanese maples, wrought iron benches, a stone pathway, an ancient brownstone staircase, and flowers springing up from the beds.

The plot on the corner of Broad Street and Court Street is another work in progress. This year, Russell Library has partnered with the Middletown Garden Club to create a “pollinator pathway” full of native species. Pollinator pathways are connected areas free of pesticides that provide homes and food for animals such as birds, butterflies, and bees necessary for the survival of local plants and habitats. If you go to their website, you can learn how you can help add to Middletown’s pollinator pathway at your own home.

Many Russell Library staff, like Shane and myself, love plants and the outdoors. If you love gardening, too, come check out our Seed Library next to the elevator in the Lobby. Tisha, one of our Friends the Library and a Master-Gardner-in-Training, has dedicated her time and energy this year to helping us keep the Seed Library stocked. When the growing season ends, she will spearhead efforts to help bring seed donations back into the library for next year. Please feel free to stop by the Seed Library the next time you’re at Russell, and join our efforts to spread the joy of nature in Middletown.