Anne Walker Cleveland (interviewed by Lisa Hayes on April 18, 2024)

Anne Walker Cleveland (interviewed by Lisa Hayes on April 18, 2024)

2024-04-18

Transcription available below.

Anne Walker Cleveland was born in New Haven, Connecticut, where her father served as a professor at Yale University. She studied at Smith College, and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa for her work in history. She married Will Cleveland, an attorney, and they lived in Charlottesville, VA, San Francisco, CA and returned to SC in 1983, where they raised their three children in Charleston. Anne taught history and English Literature at Charleston Day School for many years before becoming Executive Director of the Library in 2009. She served as Executive Director until her retirement in 2023 as we celebrated our 275th year!

Hayes, Lisa

Cox, Danielle

MP3

Audio

English

AnneCleveland_OralHistory_20240418

0:59:36

00:00:00,000 Lisa Hayes

Okay, so my name is Lisa Hayes. I'm the Director of Collections at the Charleston Library Society and I'm speaking with Anne Cleveland, our former Executive Director here in our home. It's Thursday, April 18, 2024. And we're continuing our conversation from earlier this year, learning about her time as the Executive Director and all of the wonderful changes she brought to the Library Society. So now we're going to hear a little bit about some of the authors that Anne was able to get in beginning with Pat Conway. So tell us about how you got him to come.

00:00:43,280 Anne Cleveland

Well, one of the things that my predecessor left was a Rolodex, which I never kept a Rolodex. I'd never throw it away, but it's just not the way I function. But I was, you know, in the early days, there wasn't much to do other than all the moving and rearranging of use of space. That was what I focused on primarily those first few months. But then Pat Conroy was coming out with his book, South of Broad. And by then I had heard the story from Steve Gates that there'd been a lot of consternation about where the Library would build its first building. Because it was always such a vital part of the power structure of Charleston and South Carolina that when South Carolina was first established as a state, the Library Society was given the third floor of what was the state house, now the county courthouse. I mean, it was that important to the intellectual life of this growing city and state. And finally by the turn of the century post-Civil War, they decided that they needed to build a purpose-built library. And somebody else can fill you in on the whole Carnegie outreach. But the long and the short of it is that they decided to do it on their own so that they could restrict membership. And most people who used the library lived South of Broad. That was the, you know, it's not like there were lots of restaurants or anything of much cultural value and people were used to just going to Meeting and Broad to go to the library.

00:03:02,360 Lisa Hayes

And right now, Anne's speaking about, so the library was built, the building that we're in now was built in 1914. And you were talking about the middle 20th part of the 20th century. Are you talking about more toward when you-

00:03:14,360 Anne Cleveland

No, I'm talking about when it was built in 1912 and opened in 1914. And now I'm talking about why.

00:03:26,360 Lisa Hayes

Oh, sorry. You were saying about Pat Conroy and the-

00:03:29,360 Anne Cleveland

Oh, oh, well. It became known that he was coming out with a book called South of Broad. And one of the arguments that had been given by some board members in 1900 for it to stay very close to the Four Corners of Law. In fact, the person who had earlier in the end of the 19th century purchased Steve Gates' house, which is on the corner of Tradd and Meeting. They purchased that and the properties north of 59 Meeting to have that be the site of the new library. But the countervailing belief was that the city was expanding and moving north and that it would be more important to have it above Broad. And so when I read the article about Pat Conroy writing his book South of Broad, I always tried to, in my appeal, talk about something that would be catchy. And I said that the Library Society, which was the second oldest circulating library in America, they had considered keeping it south of Broad, but ultimately decided that they would move it north of Broad, just playing on the title of his book. And I guess I can't remember whether I had seen his name in the Rolodex that Eric had left on his desk, or whether it was after I learned about the book and then just randomly was looking through. But however it happened, I had an address for Pat Conroy. So I sat down and wrote him a letter telling him all about the history of the library and how it almost had stayed south of Broad, you know, haha, but that it ended up where it is, and that we would love to have him come do a book signing and we would round up as many people as we could get. But you know, that was me just randomly writing after a couple of months at the Library Society. And one afternoon the phone rang and it was still, I was a teacher, I never had a phone on my desk. So it was still, and nobody was calling those first few months. So the phone rang and I said, "Anne Cleveland?" And there was this lull, you know, just silence and then, "Well, Anne Cleveland, this is Pat Conroy, what can I do for you?" And I almost dropped the phone. I mean, I just couldn't believe Pat Conroy had gotten my letter and called me. And I told him what I envisioned and that I had been helping the school out on Johns Island Charleston Collegiate, which was a very diverse school at that point, and that I'd love to get him to talk to the faculty and that I'd love them to stay for, you know, a week. Of course, they only lived at Beaufort. But anyway, he got him on a good, or he got me, because it was a good day, and he agreed to pretty much everything. And so we gave a dinner party that first night of friends of his, Alex Sanders, who had been president of the College of Charleston, and some other people of note. And it was just—

00:07:33,720 Lisa Hayes

At your home? Did you have your work?

00:07:35,720 Anne Cleveland

Yeah, had the dinner here. That was the first night, and then the second night was the—oh, and I got Joe Riley to, I said, "Can you give him a key to the city?" He said, "Well, we don't do that." But he proclaimed Pat Conroy Day, the day of the signing. And Angela Mack had lived across the street from us since we moved here, and so we arranged that we would do the book talk at the library society and then go over and have a reception. So it was combining resources, which most people weren't doing at that point. They still don't.

00:08:21,560 Lisa Hayes

Making those connections.

00:08:22,560 Anne Cleveland

Yes. But anyway. And so that was something—that was big because Pat Conroy was very popular and well-known, and so it was something I could use in a letter writing to other people. And it had worked so well that time. I continued to try and do that. And we had gotten—we had Scott Turow early on. And I can't even remember. It was just random. Anybody I could think of, I would figure out how to write and ask. But my true love was David McCullough because I was a history teacher and a student of history and had read almost every book he'd ever written. And John Adams had come out, which is what I had studied in college and written my honors thesis on. So I started writing him, and he wrote beautiful handwritten letters in response. But it was always, "Thank you so much, Mrs. Cleveland. I would love to come, but I'm very busy." And year after year after year. And then serendipitously because of connection through Wills being a lawyer who was head of an international legal group. And Steve Gates' roommate at Harvard Law School was a judge, federal judge, who had been a baby judge for Sandra Day O'Connor. And Will and I had had dinner with her and met her. And I told her all about the John Locke Fundamental Constitution. Anyway, the long and the short of it is we got Mark Wolf, the judge from Boston, to come down and speak about our collections, the John Marshall letter and the Fundamental Constitution. And we got Sandra Day O'Connor to come because she had mentored him when he first went on the bench. And I mean, it was just perfect timing. And there was a nice article about the Library Society, the paper, the next day, with a really flattering picture of me and Steve and Sandra Day O'Connor. And it just randomly occurred to me that David McCullough just might think I was some wizened and little librarian just stalking him. But this was a really nice picture of me with Sandra Day O'Connor and Steve. And so I wrote him saying that we'd had this wonderful evening with Sandra Day O'Connor. And it was everything I'd hoped it would be, except it wasn't him. And that's who I was really still hoping and praying would come to the Library Society and enclosed the article because it had the history of the Library Society. It was well done. And about two or three weeks later, I got a letter saying, "Well, next spring, I think will work." And it was when his book, The Wright Brothers, was coming out. And we met them at the airport at midnight. Their plane had been delayed, but we picked them up in my square car. And met them for breakfast the next morning and then had a lunch with Martha Ingram here. And then had a spectacular program and Gala and gave him the Founders Award. And by the next morning, he had offhandedly said, "This is where we ought to spend the winters," because they'd had a miserable two winters in a row in Boston. And I found two places, the carriage houses, on Tradd Street before they left. And they signed on the dotted line the following Monday and moved here the next winter. And the next winter, which was magical because we saw them all the time. But once you've got, you can mention Pat Conroy and Scott Turow and Sandra Day O'Connor and then David McCullough, you have the veritas, the gravitas of being able to seem like a substantial enough organization to get some attention. And so it started mushrooming. And then, I guess what really upped it was when we had my older brother's roommate from college coming to talk about his memoir, which is Steve Forsman. And he started Blackstone and is now worth almost $40 billion. And he's been incredibly successful. When I knew him at 18, his father ran a dry good store in a suburb of Philadelphia. And I mentioned that he was coming to Liza and Lou Kunkel and Liza said that the founder of Greystar was in awe of Steve Forsman. And I said, "Well, do you think Greystar might be a sponsor?" And the response was, "Hell yes." And that's how we launched the business and leadership. And that led to then having David Rubenstein come and he continued to come. And he's, I mean, he's, he has come five times. So and it was then that I was beginning to think it was time to contemplate retirement. But I knew that the number of people who have the skills that need to take the library business-wise in the right direction, which was not my great skill, would not necessarily have the kind of personality that I have that just thinks, "Just write them and beg them and tenaciously dog them until they say yes." And we were hosting the Century Club and Polly Buxton stopped by to introduce herself. And she had, after the last independent bookstore had closed maybe five years earlier. And that's another whole story, which I'll tell you in person. I mean, personally, rather than on this. But I was feeling guilty because I was so busy at the library I hadn't even gone over to see the bookstore.

00:16:33,080 Lisa Hayes

That's when it was by the-

00:16:34,080 Anne Cleveland

On Concord Street. And so she came in and introduced herself and I said, "Oh, I'm so sorry that I haven't even been over." And I have to back up a little bit. Things were evolving in a way that I also thought that we might want to reintegrate Jacques's antique space into the library because we were having so many programs. There were lots more lifelong learning classes and it just- There were enough things going on. I was contemplating the idea of bringing that space back into the use of the library itself. Anyway, she said, "No, no, I can understand you're so busy. Who knows how much longer we're going to be there?" And I said, "Why?" And she said, "Well, they're talking about building this damn hotel right across the street and that'll kill business." And it's like this light bulb lit up in my brain and I thought, "An independent bookstore on campus, given our history, the ability to attract big name authors, maybe that's what ought to do." And literally within 24 hours I'd asked her and Julian to come meet with me and discuss whether I should turn over the space to them. And it happened, and sure enough, I mean I look at all the programming in the year that I've been gone and 90% of it has been generated by all the connections that Polly and I have and the Buxton Books has. And so it's been exactly what I'd hoped it would be in terms of programming.

00:18:43,800 Lisa Hayes

Wonderful for the authors to get their books sold and have them added to the New York Times bestseller list and great for the library society to be able to do it.

00:18:52,880 Anne Cleveland

When you can say that you have some authors who you have sold over 300 books, even great bookstores like Ann Patchett's bookstore in Nashville, she didn't sell 300 copies, but because of the reading room. We can do that and also do intimate ones down in the bookstore, but it's everything I had. I think that's probably going to be my legacy in terms of long term effect on the perception of the Library Society having brought Polly and the bookstore on campus. The authors, the programs, the bookstores, the bookstores. I mean I think the bindery was significant because there just aren't many libraries that have a facility that caters to taking care of books.

00:20:04,560 Lisa Hayes

Yeah. Well when I left today, James was giving a tour to some folks who were publishers and showing them his space down there and the reading room that you were there to the renovation. We didn't even talk about the big capital campaign renovation that you were able to accomplish. The Igoe room of course and just there are so many, I think your lasting legacy is just the revitalization of all the different parts of the library society. It's been remarkable.

00:20:37,200 Anne Cleveland

Pretty much opening the doors and letting people know about it.

00:20:41,800 Lisa Hayes

But you were able to make those early connections that formed the baseline. You know when people like you're saying here Pat Conroy was here and David Rubinstein and they think well I want to be a part of that.

00:20:53,240 Anne Cleveland

Right.

00:20:54,240 Lisa Hayes

Yeah. That was really smart of you. I don't know if you, I mean when you started out you must not have thought it could be this big or did you think it could be as big as it turned out to be?

00:21:04,840 Anne Cleveland

I'm not sure that I had any, I didn't have a goal or even an idea other than the fact that as I started learning what the library society was as a student of history to not have ever even set foot in the place before was horrifying to me and it was this jewel that nobody knew about that had been hidden for all these years. Not that it hadn't been a very, very appreciated jewel in its heyday after its founding. I mean my God, four of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were board members. So it's not that it hadn't been a grand well-respected hub but during Warren Ripley's thirty-two years of being in charge as chairman of the board his approach and that of his boards was to protect the library society by hiding it and while it's easy to sort of dismiss that as dumb or certainly misguided in retrospect but they were doing what they could to preserve this gem in the 40s and 50s. Charleston was still suffering from the Great Depression and the Civil War. Of course that's what saved it from over development until recently. Anyway I'm not sure what, I never had a vision of what it would become. I just knew that having it be open and become the home to people who were intellectually curious and culturally adventuresome would be an open welcoming environment.

00:23:37,480 Lisa Hayes

What about, so I know that you had written to Tom Hanks to try to get him to come. Are there some other authors that you were persistent with who weren't able to come? I'm just curious. Who were you interested in?

00:23:56,320 Anne Cleveland

The second person after Pat Conroy was Bette Midler because Ryan Reynolds and whoever his wife is, she's a movie star too, I can't remember. If they got married here in Charleston, I can't even remember how long it was, but it was still early on.

00:24:23,000 Lisa Hayes

At Boone Hall.

00:24:24,000 Anne Cleveland

Yes, at Boone Hall.

00:24:25,000 Lisa Hayes

Blake Lively.

00:24:26,000 Anne Cleveland

Yes, that's who it is. I came over to the main reading room from my office and Janice and Carol were standing at the desk. This had to be after the second gala, had to be maybe 2014 because the front desk was by the, I had moved the front desk by that point. They just looked starstruck and I said, "What?" Janice said, "That's Bette Midler." I looked over at the reading table which was over in that corner and it was this sort of little old lady with short gray hair. Yeah, right. And Carol said, "No, look, it's Betty von Vulserberg or whatever and that's her married name." And I said, "What?" And they said, "Yeah, yeah." And they were not trying to pull, I could tell they weren't trying to pull my leg. And then I looked over and I thought, "Damn, that does kind of look like Bette Midler without makeup and fancy clothes." And Carol told me that she had asked for poetry. She wanted to read poetry and she brought out, who's got the blood, the Confederate

00:26:07,720 Lisa Hayes

Timrod.

00:26:08,720 Anne Cleveland

She brought that out from the vault and Bette Midler was over there reading poetry from the nineteenth century. And I went over and I thought, "Oh my God, this is amazing." I said, "Excuse me, I'm sorry to interrupt you." And she said, "Yes?" And I said, "I just want to thank you. You have made the year for my head librarian and Janice. I mean, they told me you were here and I didn't believe them, but clearly you are. But thank you so much. And I'm amazed that you're adventuresome enough to want to read Timrod and these other poets." And she said, "Oh, well yeah, when I come to a new place I want to try and get to know it. And I was wandering around and I went to the Gibbes and I went to the Historical Society. But then I walked in here and just decided to sort of sit down and enjoy my afternoon." And I said, "Well, thank you so much." And she said, "Well, now what's your business plan?" And I said, "I mean, I had no business plan." I said, "I don't know what you mean." She said, "Well, I'd like to make a contribution." And I said, "No, no, no. I tell you what, if you would come back and speak, we'd had Pat Conroy, talk about the creative process. That would be the coolest thing in the world." And she said, "Oh, well, thank you." Anyway, and I then said, "I don't want to bother you anymore." And I went back over and our daughter Meg was working at the library at that point. And when I related the story to the staff at the end of the day, Meg said, "You ought to be fired. Why would you not take a donation from Bette Midler?" And I said, "Well, I think it'll be much better if we can get her back." So I wrote her for years. But she kept starring in movies and she's in her eighties and she's still always busy. That her executive assistant and I still have a relationship. So she was the next big name that I went after. And Tom Hanks, of course, I would have loved. Ken Burns. And it was through David that I, well, through David we met Ken Burns, spent a whole evening with him. So it was easier to write him. But David and Tom had worked together on Ken's Civil Wars series, all kinds of things. So I mean, David was the voice, the narrator in Sea Biscuit, that movie. In fact, we watched that the other night just to hear David's voice. But anyway, and I've gotten, I mean, both of them continued to write me back, but I never have, never got them to Charleston. But not for lack of trying.

00:29:43,600 Lisa Hayes

You are persistent.

00:29:44,600 Anne Cleveland

Yes.

00:29:45,600 Lisa Hayes

Well, so I did mention the capital campaign and the renovation. And I know you got the, is it called the Order of the Palmettos? You were awarded the--

00:29:58,320 Anne Cleveland

No, I was--

00:29:59,320 Lisa Hayes

By the governor?

00:30:00,320 Anne Cleveland

No, no, I didn't get that. I got, see, I don't, I can't remember what it was called. But from the Humanities Award for the state. And the governor did award it. But--

00:30:21,120 Lisa Hayes

I have the name wrong, not the Order of the Palmettos. But some very special recognition of your work to revitalize, like you said, the humanities. And was the building not part of that recognition too, maybe?

00:30:35,840 Anne Cleveland

You know, I was embarrassed by the whole thing and didn't want anybody coming and it just--

00:30:43,600 Lisa Hayes

Well, I remember when it happened thinking that that was well-deserved. Well-- And I could tell that you were embarrassed. But I thought it was well-deserved. And yeah, and the building is obviously a lovely, lovely space. And I hope you felt that way after all that.

00:31:03,600 Anne Cleveland

Oh, yeah. Once I realized, and I'm sure-- I know you heard the story, but for posterity--

00:31:11,560 Lisa Hayes

Yes.

00:31:12,560 Anne Cleveland

There was the northeast corner of the building had a leak in the very up in the ceiling that we had fixed. And then a year later, it was back. And I had it fixed again. And then another year later, it was there. And I finally thought, we're probably going to have to replace the roof. But let me get a structural engineer. Because we'd had good roofers who had come, thought they'd identified the problem and fixed it. And to then have it not work was--

00:32:01,280 Lisa Hayes

Frustrating.

00:32:02,280 Anne Cleveland

Very frustrating and questioning. And anyway, so I finally then hired a structural engineer, assuming that I was going to be told and we were going to have to, as a board, realize that we were going to have to re-roof the-- repair the roof, the whole roof, not just that corner. Then the report came back mind-bogglingly telling us that the interior guttering that had made the Beaux Arts building so beautiful because they hid all the gutters in the walls had essentially compromised the entire structure of the building, which I was not prepared for at all. I never thought of myself as having to be a fundraiser. I was-- I grew up in Asia enough that I was always looking for ways to save money.

00:33:05,000 Lisa Hayes

Oh yeah. The Euro-50.

00:33:07,000 Anne Cleveland

I really don't like spending money. So that I-- but I never thought of myself as having to ask anybody for money. And the way I had-- by expanding the membership and then adding levels of support with the fellows that had all made sure that we were never in the red. We were always a well-run business, but not asking anybody for money. Just getting them excited enough to be supportive. But that meant that we were going to need a whole different approach. And fortunately, I went to a social friend, Doerte McManus, who did exactly that kind of stuff. She was the head of development for the Gilliard and begged her to come help me and thought she would be the perfect person to transition to down the road years later. And she was ready to move on herself and came. And we were-- it was just the perfect combination of very similar talents, but then wildly different talents that complimented each other. And so we-- but once we realized we needed to remove the entire roof-- do you remember when we had those huge sort of Lego-looking cement blocks?

00:34:46,280 Lisa Hayes

Yep.

00:34:51,760 Anne Cleveland

They had to create a temporary roof to then be able to take up the entire roof of the building.

00:35:03,440 Lisa Hayes

Yeah.

00:35:04,440 Anne Cleveland

I mean, it was-- and that was before we got to the interior. That was a whole year and a half with construction. But we thought we needed to raise $4 million. And then it was $5 million. And then I said, "It makes no sense to be raising this kind of money just for the structural." And then you still go down the stacks. And we had old neon-- what do you-- no, not neon-- fluorescent bulb lighting in the stacks with the string that sometimes worked to pull and tear them. But I mean, the lighting was just awful because it had been added-- you know, it was built in 1912.

00:35:58,000 Lisa Hayes

Yeah.

00:35:59,000 Anne Cleveland

And it had been sort of updated and then adjusted when they added air conditioning. So I mean, it was all haphazard. And I said, "We've got to, at the very least, make-- upgrade the electrical work and the lighting." And then it started saying, "Well, and we ought to, you know--"

00:36:23,200 Lisa Hayes

Do the elevator and--

00:36:24,760 Anne Cleveland

Well, that was even farther along. But it just started expanding. And then we decided to-- and then in conjunction with finally having worked and worked hard at cultivating Skipper Igoe to leave his Shakespeare collection to us, then all of a sudden when we got it, we realized we ought to-- we would need its own room. And that meant changing the layout of the new building, which is where the offices were. And so it just kept growing. And fortunately, Doerte knew how to do that.

00:37:17,240 Lisa Hayes

Yeah.

00:37:18,240 Anne Cleveland

And--

00:37:19,240 Lisa Hayes

Well, gosh, I guess I hadn't thought about that we got the Igoe collection simultaneously-- I mean, they knew simultaneous, so they're renovation. But what if we had gotten it just after their renovation had been done and we would have had to like retrofit or something? I wonder--

00:37:35,360 Anne Cleveland

I'm not sure what we would have done. I mean, it was all-- there was so much-- there were so many moving parts at that point. That's when I was also thinking of reincorporating Jacques's Antique Store. So the bookstore, the end of the capital campaign, the Igoe Shakespeare Library, I'd have to go back and look at my notes in order to see the real timeline. But it all just kind of bubbled up together. But I had said it makes no sense not to upfit the lighting and make some of these changes more permanent.

00:38:22,560 Lisa Hayes

Yeah. Good job.

00:38:26,040 Anne Cleveland

Yeah, yeah. The only thing I-- there's-- that I sometimes think I should have fought harder. We had the original toilets in the ladies' room and the men's room. The men's room, I didn't care about saving them. But I really thought we can upfit and make it a lovely-- with new cubicles and stuff, have it lovely. But they're perfectly sound working toilets. And they got the insignia from 1912. And I just thought it's not that they're uncomfortable. But I got outvoted.

00:39:11,040 Lisa Hayes

Well, I have a picture of them if you ever want to have a recollection. That's funny. Well, and so next to the Library Society is a really lovely-- not lovely now, but going to be lovely space that I know you were instrumental in getting that to happen. Do you want to tell us a little bit about how that worked?

00:39:36,960 Anne Cleveland

That was--

00:39:37,960 Lisa Hayes

I know persistence is another word for this.

00:39:42,280 Anne Cleveland

Well, of course, I didn't get to the Library Society until 2009. And prior to that, the Gibbes had been trying to look forward to getting SCE&G leaving that strip of land just north of us. But that historically moved like a glacier just not even inches, but milli-- and when I came on board, I certainly agreed with Angela and the Gibbes that we ought to try to preserve that as open space. And it was very subrosa for many years. I mean, we would meet with people and think we'd made some headway. I actually had struck up a-- excuse me-- a friendship with the CEO of SCANA. I can't remember what-- because there's SCANA and SCE&G and another entity. But Kevin Marsh, because he had a school-aged daughter who loved to read. And I had created the conference room. It was one of the first things I did because we needed it, because we hosted the membership libraries group a few months after I had taken over and there was no place to meet. But anyway, and we were in there and I kept saying I wanted him to bring his daughter. And we'd gotten to know each other well enough. And he had finally written me an email that he was inclined to-- because they had been out of the property for at least five years at that point. And we knew it was-- it could be developed or it could just be given. And they could get some tax benefit if they gave it. And he-- anyway, he said that he was inclined to go that direction. What none of us knew at that point was that he was involved in sort of the cover-up of the $9 billion fiasco of the nuclear power plant. And they lost all perspective and even ability to consider what they were going to do with the property. And got caught up in the whole lawsuit and he ended up going to jail. It was-- oh, it's just a disaster. But it took everything-- all of the years of sort of cultivating the people in the positions of power who could have made those decisions just got wiped right off. And so we started again. And at that point, the Gibbes had finished their renovation and their business model depended on having lots of wedding receptions in the Lenhardt garden, which didn't matter to me. But it reached a head when we started-- when Dominion decided that they were going to-- they had bought the-- they had bought SCE&G. And so after a number of years, they were going to try and sell off a lot of the properties that SCE&G had accumulated over the century. And they were negotiating with the Gibbes solo. And I said, no, we needed to be involved. And just like the previous point where we thought we had some agreements, it all sort of started falling apart. Anyway, the Gibbes then came to us and said that they had a generous donor who was willing to buy the property for $10 million and give the Gibbes the E.B. White building, which is all they wanted to begin with. And they wanted our approval because we had been working so much. John Tecklenberg, the mayor, I'd known through family connections for years and years. So I kept an open line with him, making sure that the library society's interests were going to be considered. And it all went downhill because they said-- I said, well, I can't just agree to that because what's going to happen to the rest of the property? It sounds like they're going to develop it. Well, we don't know. We don't know. We just need your approval. And I said, well, I can't do that. I've got to meet with my board and was told, no, you shouldn't discuss this with your board. And I said, no, I'm going to discuss it with my board. And we'll try and get back to you next week. And that was-- that was a frigid reception. And I convened the board via Zoom, which we'd all learned to do by then. And they all agreed, no, we need to know what's going to happen because we don't want huge buildings going up on our side. And so we said, no. But we hadn't heard anything back from the city. And hadn't heard anything back from the Gibbes. And I finally called the mayor's office and talked to his secretary. And I said, I haven't heard anything. And I really need to talk to John before too long because there's pressure from the Gibbes to-- on this development. And she said, well, he signed a letter. And I said, what letter? The letter saying that the library approves. And I said, no, we haven't given our approval. I just had my board convene yesterday. And she said, no, he signed a letter. It's in the outbox. And I said, you need to pull that letter because our board did not approve the plan. We're still trying to figure out what's the best way to move forward for the piece of property. It's the last open piece of property in the historic district. And having six stories of condos is not what we think is best. And she said, I'll be back in touch. And then Rick Daru, his chief of staff, called and said, what is going on? And I said, Rick, we did not give our approval. He said, well, we were told you had. And I said, well, that's not the case. And so they pulled the letter, which made me the bad guy in-- because it all fell apart then. But still nothing was happening. And the Gibbes was still trying to negotiate with their people to get it. And six stories of condominiums were going to be built, but they were going to get their building. And I asked if I could go speak in front of city council.

00:48:36,000 Lisa Hayes

I'm going to record on my phone, too, in case this runs out of batteries. Sorry.

00:48:42,440 Anne Cleveland

Which is not-- I'm pretty comfortable speaking to people, but not in that kind of formal way. So I made Will go with me and hold my hand. And we practiced because I had four minutes. Or maybe been three-- anyway, I got up and said that it was vital that we save the last open piece of property in historic district. And I thought, a park, what would Central-- what would New York be without Central Park? And I just thought it was a mistake. And of course, some people looked like they were just reading a book that the city council members had no reaction.

00:49:29,760 Lisa Hayes

Was that the first time that a park had been considered for that spot?

00:49:33,720 Anne Cleveland

Well, no. With the mayor. We almost had it. It was almost signed in red. It was so close to being finalized. Anyway, but I thought I've now gone and made my appeal to city council. They didn't look like they were paying any attention. But it's now public record. So I contacted Robert Baer at the Post and Courier. And he had no idea what was going on. The Post and Courier had no idea that the property was even in play. And so he wrote an op-ed. And then another series of sort of quiet letters were exchanged. And then Ben Navarro read the second op-ed and called the mayor and said, "I'd like to look at it." And all of a sudden, it was a done deal. So we-- if I had not called Elizabeth Bailey asking, "Why haven't I heard?" I just got to speak to John. And she told me, "No." I mean, it would have been too late.

00:50:57,700 Lisa Hayes

Yeah, wow. Your instincts and good timing and luck.

00:51:03,120 Anne Cleveland

Yeah, it was total luck because if-- I mean, he had signed a letter saying, "Yeah, it's fine from the mayor's point of view because the library societies in sync and all this." Then they would have signed a contract with the developer and it would have been too late.

00:51:24,120 Lisa Hayes

Well, and I know speaking from someone who works at the front desk, I hope that they're going to put a restroom building over there somehow because--

00:51:33,220 Anne Cleveland

Oh, they will.

00:51:34,220 Lisa Hayes

--that will, you know, a really nice park like that. People will be there all the time. It's going to be so nice, it sounds like.

00:51:40,340 Anne Cleveland

Oh, my-- what Casey Lavin certainly told me while I was still involved was that there's going to be high-end receptions, which is what upset the Gibbes so much because they looked at it as competition. But they are-- I said, "If you're spending $100,000 on a reception, you don't want a trailer bathroom."

00:52:05,440 Lisa Hayes

No.

00:52:06,440 Anne Cleveland

He said, "No, no, no. We will have facilities for high-end facilities for the park."

00:52:14,280 Lisa Hayes

Do you know what the building-- what will happen with the building that's on King Street? Is that part of--?

00:52:20,580 Anne Cleveland

It's-- it-- certainly when I was still involved and I asked to remain involved, but that hasn't happened. But it was historic and couldn't be torn down. So my guess is that they will gut it and have a sort of kitchen-type facility, bathrooms, that will service the park for special events.

00:52:54,880 Lisa Hayes

Perfect. Good.

00:52:56,880 Anne Cleveland

I mean, that's my assumption.

00:52:57,880 Lisa Hayes

It seems like a good plan for it. It's going to be so nice to have that right next to the library.

00:53:01,880 Anne Cleveland

Yeah.

00:53:02,880 Lisa Hayes

I'm so glad that it worked out.

00:53:03,880 Anne Cleveland

Yes. Me too. Shakespeare in the Park.

00:53:07,000 Lisa Hayes

Yes. Well thank you for your time, and I don't know. Is there anything else you can think of that we haven't talked about that you would like to talk about? I know you've done so much and there's probably a million things we could--

00:53:23,000 Anne Cleveland

Well I think for a good run of years the thing I probably took the most pride in was having brought together what I thought was the perfect group of people to shepherd the library society. It was, we had a few hiccups when when Carol retired, we had two Jessica's. I mean, we had, you know, I'd never been in a position to particularly hire people. Oh, and I'll go back just when the last bookstore, it was in the paper. I can't even remember the name of it. Over on Folly Road, the paper had an article about the last independent bookstore closing in Charleston. It was just so sad. I had gone there some. I didn't go on Folly Road that much, but I got in the car. I said, "Janice, I'll be back." And drove over and I said, "What are you going to do?" And she said, "I don't know. All I've ever done is sell books." And I thought, "Well, and this was still early on enough that we didn't have a children's library and we didn't, I mean, there wasn't somebody permanently at the front desk." Anyway, I said, "I will find the money to hire you in some capacity because you know how to sell books, which means you'll know what the latest books are and all that kind of stuff." And she was a nice person. And of course, I didn't have anything in a budget to hire her, but I figured it'll work out. We didn't have anything in the budget to buy a Steinway, but I figured it out anyway. And she was a nice person, but she loved her job in her bookstore because she sat there and read all day long. And she wasn't somebody who just took the bull by the horn, so it didn't end up working. My heart was way ahead of any business sense. And so we had some ups and downs like that, but then we had a core of people that were together for a decade that really understood why the library society is so unique and special and cared so much about it. And I was really proud of, especially you. I could hardly wait to finally convince you to come full-time.

00:56:24,040 Lisa Hayes

Well, you fostered a very collegial work environment.

00:56:28,320 Anne Cleveland

Yeah. It was just, I could hardly wait to go to work. Well, I think everybody felt that way.

00:56:36,320 Lisa Hayes

Yeah. I don't know if the phrase is salad days, but I do feel like the library has had so many ups and a long period, I think, of downs. But then really, I feel like during her tenure, we began a very forward trajectory that is still increasing.

00:56:56,320 Anne Cleveland

Yeah.

00:56:57,320 Lisa Hayes

I feel good about being there, so thank you.

00:57:00,320 Anne Cleveland

Oh, yeah. Well, I'm so glad you are there and holding down the fort.

00:57:05,320 Lisa Hayes

Doing my best.

00:57:07,320 Anne Cleveland

Yeah. Well, if you think of other questions, I'm happy to talk. One of the things that I need to do is come. I still got hundreds of pictures on my phone of the renovations when James and Steve knocked out the entrance into what is now the Igoe area with sledgehammers. Do you remember any of that?

00:57:44,560 Lisa Hayes

No, I probably wasn't there that particular day. I remember what the research and writing center used to look like.

00:57:52,880 Anne Cleveland

But we had to move every book out of—but anyway, I've got hundreds of pictures on my phone that I need to just come over and I guess sit with Gabriel and just download them.

00:58:12,280 Lisa Hayes

I think Danielle could help you with that. She's such a wiz. She'd be glad to help you.

00:58:17,520 Anne Cleveland

Yeah, because I don't need them anymore.

00:58:20,520 Lisa Hayes

Yeah. And if you did keep a diary or a journal or something like that, we'd certainly love to talk about a way to get your papers. We have a small collection of things relating to you and your family already, so if you wanted to, we could talk about that.

00:58:39,520 Anne Cleveland

I kept my calendar.

00:58:42,520 Lisa Hayes

Planner.

00:58:43,520 Anne Cleveland

For every month that I worked there.

00:58:48,520 Lisa Hayes

Smart.

00:58:49,520 Anne Cleveland

And I scribbled on that a lot. And then I—for a number of years, when we had Monday meetings, I made up the week—

00:59:00,000 Lisa Hayes

Oh yeah, you have all those? I have all those.

00:59:02,000 Anne Cleveland

Yeah, I mean, I'm happy to, but I don't know that it'll make sense to anybody unless I just transcribe it all.

00:59:13,520 Lisa Hayes

Oh, no, yeah, don't feel like you have to do that. Debbie has a lot of—well, your emails and things too, I'm guessing, are in the archive. I don't know, but—

00:59:23,520 Anne Cleveland

They're supposed to be.

00:59:25,520 Lisa Hayes

I don't know. Well, like I said, thank you so much.

00:59:29,520 Anne Cleveland

Oh yeah.

00:59:30,520 Lisa Hayes

It's nice to visit with you. Keep in touch.

00:59:32,520 Anne Cleveland

Oh. Yeah. Well, you can—