The Burke Library has become a destination site for some New York City students recently.
During the last week of June and first weeks of July, nearly eighty students from two NYC Community Colleges visited the Burke Library and Union Seminary as part of their current course of studies. The students were in three separate English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, and came from over half a dozen countries, including China, Ukraine, and the Dominican Republic. One of their main assignments was to read Flying Over 96th Street by Thomas Webber, which recounts Webber’s childhood when he lived at Union Theological Seminary and later in a neighborhood in Harlem in the 1950s and 1960s, while his father worked at Union Theological Seminary and later at the East Harlem Protestant Parish.
The students’ visit contextualized the book, and provided an opportunity for them to experience a prestigious, large, and important library collection and space. As the tour groups departed, they were very happy to have had the chance to visit the Burke Library, and many asked when they could return!