'A Tree Grows In Brooklyn' Library Earns Literary Landmark

Brooklyn, NEW YORK — A tradition grows in Brooklyn.

Williamsburg's Leonard Library earned literary landmark status to honor the role it played in "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" and the life of its author, renowned Brooklyn novelist Betty Smith, the Brooklyn Public Library announced this month.

The library at 81 Devoe St. earned the literary accolade — and a plaque commemorating one of Brooklyn's most famous book lovers — from the American Library Association's United for Libraries program on Nov. 14, in celebration of the novel's 75th birthday.

“I wish my mother were here; she would be so pleased and honored,” said the novelist's daughter Nancy Smith Pfeiffer. "It is here that my mother discovered her love of books and reading."

Not only does the Leonard Library play a key role in Smith's most iconic novel — it's where young Francie Nolan learns “the world was hers for the reading” — it's also the library that nurtured Smith's literary ambitions when she was a child growing up in Williamsburg.

"I can almost hear that young girl," said Smith Pfeiffer, "saying, 'When I grow up I will have a library of my own like this and in it will be all the books that I have loved in my lifetime.'"

Leonard Library joins 170 other literary landmarks in the United States that include the homes of Pearl Buck, Laura Ingalls Wilder and Mark Twain.

The plaque is the library's second memento honoring Smith and her literary career. In 2008, the Brooklyn Public Library officials came to the Devoe Street landmark and planted a tree.

Photos by Kathleen Culliton and courtesy of GoogleMaps