News Release

Join Mayor Gavin Newsom, City Librarian Luis Herrera and other officials for the groundbreaking of the new Portola Branch Library.

11:30 a.m.–12:30 p.m. on Tuesday, July 17

Corner of Bacon and Goettingen streets. (Enter on Bacon Street)

Join us as several hundred children from the adjacent Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School and E.R. Taylor Elementary School, breakdancers from Palega Recreation Center and neighborhood residents celebrate the building of the first permanent library in the often overlooked Portola community.

The construction of the Portola Branch is part of the Branch Library Improvement Program, which called for replacing branches currently housed in leased storefronts with City-owned buildings. The program is funded by a $105.9 million bond measure approved by voters in 2000. A separate fundraising campaign by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library will provide new furniture and equipment for the new branch. This extremely diverse, but little-known, neighborhood will finally get a library big enough to serve the community’s many needs in a City-owned building. The new branch will have a prominent reading area, an expanded children’s section, a designated teen area, a program room with after-hours access for community meetings, more functional staff spaces, expanded Chinese- and Spanish-language collections to serve the prominent immigrant population, and a main entrance on Goettingen. Sun-shading devices resembling book spines and well-placed functional windows for natural lighting and ventilation will add to the design.

The Portola neighborhood is located south of Bernal Heights and west of Highway 101.