More than just books, New Utrecht Library celebrates Lunar New Year

An enormous turnout filled the New Utrecht Public Library in Bensonhurst as it held its first Chinese New Year Celebration on Saturday, February 28.

“In recent years, we saw there was an increase in Chinese immigrants in the community and we’ve been trying to find ways to bring them into the library, let them know what the library offers – – that we’re more than just books,” said Tambe-Tysha John, neighborhood library supervisor and branch manager.

She expressed this was one of many events held year-round at the branch to welcome immigrants of many cultures in the neighborhood like Russian, Polish, Spanish and Italian.

For this event, arts and crafts was held upstairs as people participated in Chinese knotting, brush painting Chinese words, paper cutting and learning the Lion Dance.

The YZY Concord Chorus, a Queens-based singing group consistent of mainly amateur music lovers who enjoy singing together and performing for the community, also performed.
In the basement, the Friends of New Utrecht – who had supplied water for the performers and bought decorations for the space — held an art exhibition and sold books, coffee and Chinese tea to try to raise funds for the branch.

The event came together from an idea of Yong-Le Yau, who now works in the adult department, to celebrate Lunar New Year in a neighborhood with many Asian families.

“We considered the neighborhood,” said Yau. “The neighborhood is Chinese, Italian, Russian and Spanish so our directors chose to hold the program very carefully, to cover all these different cultures.”

By the end of the day, everyone had a reason to smile.

The event’s success has John hungry for more. “If we get more funding, we’d be able to get more staff and with more staff, we can do more and provide more for our community and we also are in need of a renovation also because there’s so much more that we could be doing and we can’t, because we’re limited with the space that we have,” she said.