The first library to serve the neighborhood opened in 1957 as the Emerson Branch. This frame house near East 38th Street and North Emerson Avenue soon became too small to meet the neighborhood's needs, leading to the construction of a 7,500-square-foot branch at the same location in 1962. The Emerson Branch closed its doors in 2003 when the current 16,000-square-foot library opened as the East Thirty-Eighth Street Branch.