It wasn’t quite Pompeii, but it was close.
There, staring at Lupita Leyva on her first day back at work since the librarian hurriedly left her desk when the pandemic began, were old program fliers, stickers promoting the 2020 census and other artifacts from a time before the world changed.
The senior librarian at a Boyle Heights branch of the Los Angeles Public Library said she couldn’t help but have mixed feelings when she returned in April to prepare for the building’s reopening this month.
“It was exciting to come back, but at the same time it was a little bit painful because it really brought to mind the year that we lost when we weren’t there and weren’t able to do what we normally do,” said Leyva, 47. “I had stats and things on the census we planned to give out in the spring and summer. I go back and all of a sudden, 2020 is long gone.”