Braille Institute to Build Addition : New Structure to House Library, Conference Center, Press
Lucy Jackson, a spry senior citizen, looks forward to using a new building at 741 N. Vermont Ave.-- although knowing she will never see it.
The building is a $15-million, three-story addition to the Braille Institute.
Each year, the institute provides free services to more than 26,000 blind and visually-impaired persons in Central and Southern California.
This is part of a building program that dates from 1927, when the organization, then known as Universal Braille Press, acquired the Vermont Avenue location.
Consolidate Library
Jackson has been participating in the institute’s activities since 1956. She now serves as a volunteer, helping others.
“Braille Institute has given me a new life,” she says. “Becoming blind does not mean you are dead.”
The new addition will house the institute’s library, conference center and Braille embossing facilities. It will allow for the consolidation of more than 500,000 Braille books, prerecorded talking books on records and cassettes and 36,000 talking book machines.
The new addition is the first phase of the long-range development of 1.7-acres adjoining the original site. The addition site was acquired in 1986 in a property exchange with the Los Angles Community College District.
The addition was designed by Gin Wong Associates, of Beverly Hills, which has been involved with the institute for 20 years.
Completion is scheduled for February, 1990. McCarthy Western Constructors Inc., of Irvine, is the contractor.
Park with Sculptures
The addition will be connected to the existing building by a 37-foot bridge at the second level.
During the phased construction, all programs and services will operate.
A courtyard between the present building and the addition will feature a granite cascading fountain, trees, plants and seasonal flowers. There will also be a park with sculptures that the blind can enjoy.
Subterranean parking for 148 cars will connect to the existing building. More surface parking for friends and family of library patrons will be provided.
Wong has also been commissioned to remodel the existing 12,000-square-foot library. Because of inadequate space, more than half of the collection has been warehoused at a building owned by the institute at 125 N. Western Ave.
Expanded Press Facility
Together with the library storage, shipping and receiving facilities, the addition will house an expanded Braille Institute Press. This publishing department produces magazines, books and other Brailled materials.
More than 2,000 publications and talking books are shipped daily from the institute, making it the second largest package mailer in the city, following the Sunset House mail order firm.
The press is the largest facility of its kind in the western United States. Production for the last year included more than 2.2 million pages in 51,027 volumes.
