The design goals of this 7,500-sf project were to create indoor and outdoor spaces for the enjoyment of the community and a façade with the dignity and scale appropriate to a public building. The site for the building is 500-sf larger than its footprint. The community requested that the remaining area be used as a garden. The location of the garden along the street, with a fence more than fifteen feet high, is considered enough of a deterrent to vandalism to permit windows in the reading room on the far side of the garden. Thus, readers are allowed a view through the garden to the street, passersby can see into the library, and the fortress-like appearance, which is often a necessity for small civic buildings, is avoided. Glass panels above the doors and street-side windows both increase their scale and bring more natural light into the building. The garden fence and the front-door grill are both richly detailed. The two-story-high entrance carries a sculpture of an open book, the symbol of the Brooklyn Public Libraries.