Borrowed

Since our libraries were closed for the last four months, we were on the lookout for organizations that were acting in the spirit of public libraries. We found one! Listen to an audio portrait of the food justice movement happening on street corners across Brooklyn. And we'll be back in your feed again in September for Season 3 of Borrowed.

In honor of Juneteenth 2020, the anniversary of the day in 1865 when the news was finally delivered to Galveston, Texas that slavery in the United States had been abolished, we are returning to an episode from earlier in our season. "Free Brooklyn" tells two important stories about the struggle for freedom: a young girl “auctioned” at Plymouth Church in 1860 and the story of Weeksville, Brooklyn's historically Black neighborhood.

In an unprecedented time of stress and resilience, many Brooklynites are at the front lines of responding to the coronavirus crisis, and many more are encountering a new normal, as we adjust to changing work, education, housing, and even access to basic amenities. Listen to stories from people across the borough as part of our ongoing local oral history archive.

In 1943, Brooklyn Public Library launched its first radio program, in partnership with WNYC. “Folk Songs for the Seven Million,” written and produced by Elaine Lambert Lewis, documented folk songs and stories from around the country and collected folk traditions from everyday Brooklynites. On this episode, we pay tribute to our audio ancestor.

Earth Day is here, but a lot of us are inside. On this episode of Borrowed, we gather sounds of the natural world from the stoops and parks of Brooklyn, and we look back at the first Earth Day fifty years ago, and ask what it means for us today.

The census doesn’t just distribute representatives in congress and billions of dollars in federal funds—it determines city bus routes, how many garbage cans are on your block, and whether a grocery store opens in your neighborhood. Filling out the census is one of the most powerful ways to use your voice.

Working from home? Kids at home? The library is here for you! We’ve got virtual resources galore to help you keep a healthy social distance during the coronavirus outbreak. Check out eBooks & Audiobooks: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/borrow/ebooks-audiobooks Attend virtual story time every day at 11am and 2pm, join our virtual Dungeons & Dragons for teens, and so much more: https://www.bklynlibrary.org/event-series/virtual-programming Read the latest newspapers and magazines online...

Listen to three Brooklynites talk about their personal connections to places across the borough. We’ll hear from a Walt Whitman scholar at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge, an LGBTQ activist in Brighton Beach, and one of Biggie’s biggest fans on a block in Clinton Hill. Plus, come hang out with us at Central Library’s first ever night of podcasting on March 14! RSVP: bklynlib.org/listenup

If you’re a kid or if you take care of a kid, chances are you use the library a lot. Listen in on some creative ways that libraries are engaging with children and their caregivers, from writing workshops just for caregivers to classes that help patrons open daycare centers in their own homes.

For our first ever live show, we went back to the basics and talked about books! Listen to our librarians as they match audience members to books on the spot, reveal what, in fact, is the real number-one-checked-out-book in Brooklyn and recommend their favorite reads of 2019. This episode was recorded during the Brooklyn Podcast Festival at Union Hall on January 26.

Andrew Carnegie has a classic rags-to-riches story: an immigrant turned steel magnate who financed the construction of over 2,500 public library buildings worldwide, including 21 in Brooklyn. But, his business and labor policies often hurt the very people his libraries served. As one Carnegie steel worker said in 1900: “After working 12 hours, how can a man go to a library?” We dig into Carnegie’s complicated legacy, with a special appearance from the Bowery Boys! Listen to their...

We’re getting in your ears to tell you about our first ever live recording of Borrowed! It’s free, at 5pm on Sunday, January 26 at Union Hall, as a part of Brooklyn Podcast Festival (event details here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/borrowed-live-tickets-84560078471). And, we’re collaborating with The Bowery Boys on an episode about Andrew Carnegie’s complicated legacy. That will come out this Friday, January 24 on our feed and theirs ...

To ring in the new year, take a dive into the stories of the Coney Island Polar Bear Club. We hear from voices from across New York City—a cop speaking openly about his wife's drug addiction, recent Russian immigrants looking for tradition, and a mother mourning her daughter's death—who all have their own reasons for jumping into the freezing ocean every Sunday.

Perhaps Brooklyn’s most iconic neighborhood is Bedford-Stuyvesant. The tree-lined streets and grand brownstones have been here for over 150 years, while the Brooklynites who call those brownstones home are constantly changing. In this episode, we tell the story of this neighborhood through the lives of three women who set down roots there in different ways: activist Hattie Carthan, writer Paule Marshall, and novelist Naomi Jackson.

At the edge of Brooklyn, there’s a beach covered with glass bottles, nylon stockings, rusting kitchen appliances, and decaying batteries. The trash didn’t float here, though. It’s eroding from a poorly-covered landfill. We start this episode at Dead Horse Bay, where we ask what trash can tell us about structures of power, and end the episode in 1960s Bed-Stuy, where the local Civil Rights Movement took on a surprising enemy: garbage collection.

We're talking trash at the library today. Specifically, the story of a 3,000-ton garbage barge that made a scene in Brooklyn in the 1980s… and, we ask what happens to library books when they get too old. Finally, we take a trip to East Harlem, where one sanitation worker spent 30 years creating an archive of New Yorkers' trash.

Four hundred years later, this country has yet to reckon with the legacy of slavery. And that is no less true for Brooklyn. This episode, we’re taking a cue from The 1619 Project and telling important stories about the struggle for freedom, from a young girl “auctioned” at Plymouth Church in 1860 to the story of Crown Heights’s Weeksville as a site of resistance and power before the Civil War.

It’s not an uncommon experience to be unstably housed in this country. From Brooklyn to San Francisco, communities often turn to public libraries for valuable information, social services and for a safe and comfortable place to be. This episode, we listen to stories of patrons experiencing homelessness, and ask how the library could be better when it comes to creating a sense of home for everyone.

Libraries are truly amazing no matter where you go. This season on Borrowed, we’re going to celebrate that, and bring you stories that challenge your idea of the public library, and of Brooklyn, too.

Immigration is a pressing topic in our political landscape right now, with concerns about ICE raids and immigration bans. In this episode, we listen to inspiring stories of recent asylees, the case for more bilingual librarians, and what the library means when we say “American.”