Public Employee Press

Profile in Public Service

Parks Librarian Kaitilin Griffin
"A sense of place"

By JANE LaTOUR

Parks Librarian Kaitilin Griffin gets to travel in time as she does her job of finding what happened in the past in a particular park or place and making it accessible to the public today on signs.

For the past four years, Griffin has been revisiting the sites of historic and remarkable events and researching their stories in the copious files, books and documents housed at The Arsenal, the Parks Dept.'s headquarters in Central Park, to write descriptions that make the past come alive for visitors.

"I grew up in New York City and came back after spending 10 years as a medievalist. This job is where I started to learn the history of the town I was raised in," said the Local 371 member. "Through history, we feel closer to places. It's a way of creating a sense of place."

Sometimes her work is collaborative, as she helps researchers discover the history hidden in the files and maps of the library. Recently some Urban Park Rangers visited to learn more about their location - Fort Totten. "We looked at the maps and the historic structures report. The more you know about the history of a place, the better steward you will be," she said. This is as true for the general public as it is for Urban Park Rangers.

Griffin's love of place and history is evident as she describes Fort Totten. "There are layers of history there, with buildings from the Civil War era and remarkable views of the East River. It's one of our beautiful, poetic sites. The architecture has some of the lines of a coliseum, and it's slightly overgrown. There's a softness to it that pulls you back in time," she said.