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Vietnam Vet Says He'll Fight Library's Use Of Memorial Center

By Michael Y. Park

Reprinted from
The Jersey Journal
Monday, April 12, 1999

Veteran David Cline says it's a war he never wanted. But when he heard the Zabriskie Street branch of the Jersey City Public Library might move into the Vietnam Veteran Memorial Center for six months, he sounded the call to arms.

"The bottom line is, if we have to, we'll go out and picket because it's wrong," he said last week. "The people of Jersey City will know that the Jersey City Vietnam vets don't like what they're doing."

Because long-needed major renovation at the Zabriskie Street library will shut the building down for six months starting in June, a makeshift library will take its place. After consulting with the Friends of the Zabriskie Street Library - a small, loosely organized group of library supporters - the library decided the best plan was to move it to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Center in nearby Pershing Field, library board President Ervin Haynes said.

Although it bears the name of the Jersey City sons killed in the Vietnam War, the city-owned center is regularly rented out to block associations, sports leagues and Alcoholics Anonymous, among others.

Putting a library in there means the other groups won't be able to use it, Cline says, especially because it's only meant to hold up to 109 people and is basically one room with attached bathrooms.

"Putting a library in there means restricting its use for all the community groups that use it during the week," said Cline, president of the Jersey City Vietnam Veterans Memorial Committee.

Herbert C. Huels, president of the Pershing Field Neighborhood Association, agreed.

"They call it temporary, but it's permanent as far as I'm concerned," he said. "The people using it now are either put out or handicapped if the library uses it. It's not a big place."

Because the temporary library would only take up "a couple of feet of wall space and some tables," Haynes said the library and other groups who use the building should be able to coexist peacefully. And Ward D Councilman William A. Gaughan said that the library would only be open once a week during the day, hours before most groups schedule their meetings.

Cline remained skeptical.

"If you put books in there, you'll have people in each other's armpits," he said. "And once you get a library in there, they're going to say, 'Why not put in this for six months?' and then, 'Why not a police station?'"

But there's more to it than elbow room, Cline said.

"That's the only Vietnam memorial in Jersey City," said Cline, who earned a Bronze Star and three Purple Heart medals. "That's the only thing we have."

"As a Vietnam veterans group, we think it should be respected as a memorial. But I had to hear it through the grapevine., and then I was told it was a fait accompli until we started bitching. It's like we're good enough to use to put our names on the building, but when they have got to put a library in there, forget us."

Gaughan said Cline isn't considering other viewpoints.

"The vets' group seem to think it's their building and they have say over who goes in there," he said. "You know what alternative he suggested? Sending kids who use the library all the way over to Five Corners library. Now that's a terrible injustice for these little kids, who are often latch-key kids. We're dealing with babies."

Gaughan, Haynes and the Friends didn't seem to agree entirely on how firm the plan was.

"I'm going to sit personally with any group that meets there, and if there is a problem, I'll find (the group) an alternate place to meet," Gaughan said. "If the center is too small, we will have to find another site, but that's the plan for now."

But Monya McCarty, a spokesman for the Friends, said the center is only one possibility. Another centrally located site that could be used might be the first floor of the Jersey City Parking Authority.

Haynes said it's out of his hands.

"We want to sit down with (the groups that use the site) and see what can be worked out," he said.

"But basically this is the decision the council and people at the Heights (the Friends) have made, so I have to defer to them. If they decide that becomes a problem, we'll look elsewhere."