I subscribe to various Brooklyn-New York City related feeds in my feed collection. On April 17, 2026, one of those feeds included an article by Karina Gerry for New York News 12 titled Free ‘stick library’ pops up in Brooklyn Heights for dog owners. I did not need to open the article to know what it is about, for I had already photographed the “Stick Library” not long before for an article. Unfortunately, I photographed it when my current daily-driver phone, a Google Pixel 3a XL, was running Ubuntu Touch, and I forgot to “sync” the photos when I recently replaced Ubuntu Touch with LineageOS. But that error was reversible. Once again using a local news story as inspiration to undertake investigative photo-journalism, I present my April 17, 2026 photograph of the Brooklyn Heights stick library:
The Stick Library is a play on the “Little Free Library” boxes (there are a few of those in Brooklyn Heights). Instead of books in a box for people, we have sticks on racks for dogs. I see what they just did there.
The Stick Library is located on Columbia Place, just off Joralemon Street and between Joralemon and State. You can see the approximate location on Open Street Map. Columbia Place is somewhat out of the way. For one, it exists for a single short block. For two, while it is technically part of Brooklyn Heights, it sits near the bottom of a hill giving way to an inlet to Brooklyn Bridge Park (one Cybertruck I documented was a bit further down Joralomon). Joralemon Street itself is fairly busy because it connects the Heights and the Park and because there is a Borough Hall Subway Station entrance a few blocks up, but I suspect few non-locals turn off onto Columbia Place or Willow Place (Willow Place runs parallel to Columbia). The Stick Library is well-placed because the quaint Willowtown Dog Run sits at the opposite end of Columbia Place. (The Willowtown Dog Run and Adam Yauch Park cut off the one-block Columbia Place from Columbia Street, which is the central street of the neighboring Columbia Street Waterfront District neighborhood.)
Returning to the Stick Library itself, I believe it gets some use. While I have not taken careful note of the sticks when I happen to pass it, I think there has been some turnover. Of the three sticks on April 17, 2026, the bottom two strike me as being the kinds of sticks most dogs could enjoy while the top stick looks like something a big dog could use to slay a vampire.
