American actor Leonardo DiCaprio has quietly funded a small library located in the grounds of his childhood home.
Located a spitting distance from Griffith Park, the Los Feliz branch of the Los Angeles Public Library has all the makings of a cozy neighbourhood library.
There’s a novel and movie check-out service for patrons. Benches line up the bookshelves for visitors to curl up on to read or to catch free lectures in the library’s media room, while library cardholders can do research and browse the internet in the library’s dedicated computer.
This computer room is different from the other spaces in the library. Named ‘The Leonardo DiCaprio Computer Center’, its walls are lined with signed posters of films starring Leonardo DiCaprio. They include ‘Titanic’, ‘The Great Gatsby’, ‘Catch Me If You Can’, ‘Blood Diamond’, among others.
The room itself is located where DiCaprio’s childhood bedroom once stood.
When the library was under construction in the late 1990s, DiCaprio’s childhood home near the corner of Hillhurst and Franklin had already been torn down; the site was a vacant lot. By the time the library was gearing up to open in 1999, DiCaprio had already become a huge movie star post his box office hit ‘Titanic’, said Senior Librarian, Pearl Yonezawa.
DiCaprio and his family donated $35,000 to fund the on-site computer center. The initial computer room had seven desktops decked out with software that could help children shore up their language and math skills.
During the late 2000s recession, DiCaprio paid for a five-year subscription on New York Times magazine for the library’s users who couldn’t afford it.
While the Hollywood star no longer lives in the Los Feliz area, his foundation sometimes writes to the library to inquire about its immediate needs. He also periodically drops by to see how things are going.
Credit: AFP
