For nearly 120 years, the Hudson Park Library, the first public library built in the Village, has been serving its community diligently, providing its residents with access to books, films, artworks, workshops, and innumerable other services. For librarian Emil Allakhverdov, who has been with the branch since 2017, the library is more than a collection of bricks and books, but a thriving place of culture and community.
Though most people associate libraries with just book borrowing, the Hudson Park branch, like most NYPL branches, hosts a wide variety of programming. Monthly, the branch offers English sign language classes, book clubs, puzzle clubs, crocheting classes, writing workshops, and has lectures from a panel of rotating artists once a month. The library also hosts author presentations, creative aging workshops, music events, other lectures, and a chess club, on top of movie screenings.
The Hudson Park Library is also one of the few NYPL branches to have its own art gallery, with nearly a three-year backlog of artists eager to have their work showcased. The gallery today mainly hosts local artists at the start of their careers, though Allakhverdov says anyone is welcome to ask to have their work showcased—even a Hobokenite recently had their work on display. The gallery is a point of pride for Allakhverdov. “I like the idea that even a place like Hudson Park Library can be a starting point for an artist,” he says.
The old library. Photo courtesy of the Hudson Park Library.
The library itself is rich with local history and culture. Jack Kerouac, James Baldwin, Edith Wharton, and others are just a few notables who used to live in the area and likely passed through its halls. Poet Marianne Moore was a librarian at the branch from 1921 to 1925, when she wrote numerous poems earning her praise from the likes of T. S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams. Today, superstars and producers are just a few people to float through the library; local celebrities can often be seen bringing their children to the branch.
Even before it was built, the library’s site was a place of history: the building sits on the former site of a cemetery famed writer Edgar Allan Poe once worked at as a night watchman. Many speculate Poe was inspired to write his famous poem “The Raven” while a here, though Mr. Allakhverdov is skeptical of the notion. However, he does admit that the library likely played a large role in the lives of creatives, famed and less famed, who passed through its halls. “Anything that takes place in a space like this is going to have an effect,” says Mr. Allakhverdov.
The Hudson Park Library. Photo by J. Barnes.
In 2025, a family showed up at the library to tell Mr. Allakhverdov that they used to live there. In the 19th and 20th centuries, it was common for a library to have a custodian who lived in the building with his family and maintain the building and guard the books and boilers by night. Mr. Allakhverdov spoke of a woman who told him that she grew up in the library as its custodian’s daughter, a story that ended up being retold in The New York Times.
The custodian’s daughter was pleased to revisit her childhood home and had a plethora of memories to share. Some, like the tale of the gentleman who broke into the library to sleep were somewhat sad. Others, like looking out a window, watching Keith Haring paint a mural on a wall at the swimming pool next door, were far more lovely. The woman and Mr. Allakhverdov remain in touch.
Special Celebration
The library will be hosting a celebration of the library’s anniversary on the 29th of January, from 6 to 8 p.m. The Rocco John Group, a local jazz band, will be providing live music, and party-goers will have the chance to make their own book. Poet Mya Matteo Alexice will be present with a typewriter to write custom poetry for attendants, and local artist Lily Annabelle will have original drawings of Hudson Park and the West Village for people to color in. Dikko Faust and Esther K. Smith, the owners of Purgatory Pie Press, will also be in attendance: Faust will have a historic letterpress printing press, also 120 years old, for people to operate. Smith will be present to help people make their own books from the other materials they make.
Although most people in attendance will be longtime library-goers, Mr. Allakhverdov is hopeful non-regulars will show up as well. “I would like people not familiar with the branch to come here that night,” he says.
