Amy Thatcher, a smiling woman with bright pink lipstick and a sweep of long, white hair, sits at a wooden library table beneath the pale, cathedral ceiling of the elegant, brick, Carnegie-endowed, 116-year-old Richmond Library. She is talking about honey bees.

Thatcher is the branch manager of the library, which is the beating literary heart of Port Richmond, a working class neighborhood of small, brick rowhouses north of Fishtown on the Delaware River. One thing sets it apart: Live honeybees thrum and zoom in a glass case set into a wall, buzzing in and out of the building via a clear pipe to the outdoors. This is the only “observatory hive” in all 54 Free Library branches — and just one of a throng of projects Thatcher has organized and sponsored that make Richmond one of Philadelphia’s civic gems.

The library is one of Port Richmond’s rare third spaces where Trump supporters and Bernie Sanders progressives might rub elbows genially in a knitting workshop. In recent months, it has hosted a horror book club, an herbalist group, a French language exchange, yoga for adults and kids, a Dungeons & Dragons club, and a seedling exchange. There’s also been a python demonstration (the snake, not the programming language), a visit from live raptors, and a performance by members of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

“What you learn in library school isn’t exactly what you apply; what you learn on the job is more important, and that you can be creative. And it’s a good way to change. Change your community, make a community happen.” — Librarian Amy Thatcher

There are graphic novels and video games for all ages, a Polish-language book collection to reflect thousands of neighborhood residents, a growing selection of Albanian materials, and language-learning software for both newcomers and longtime residents. An antique glass case displays items excavated from local privies; old maps and colorful paintings by local artist Jim Brossy adorn the walls. Tall potted plants sit atop bookshelves, their leaves stretching toward the windows.

This is the kind of room where almost anybody might be inspired to read or write.

“Amy is the Miss Frizzle of librarians.” explains beekeeper Don Shump, referring to the science teacher who leads children on adventures in the Magic Bus series of children’s books. “She’s amazingly enthusiastic. People think librarians are stuffy and boring, but Amy is the opposite of that. She’s a very Philly librarian.” Thatcher has worked as a librarian for 30 years, 24 of which have been for the Free Library, and 10 of which have been at Port Richmond.

We can’t say for sure that Thatcher is the sole reason 1,300 people signed a petition to push the library to reopen after last year’s eight-month shutdown for maintenance issues. But when the doors finally opened again, neighbors came bearing cakes and cookies and towering potted plants to replace ones that died during the shut down. Some were in tears. All were happy to see her.

But back to the bees.

Catching more readers with honey

“We discovered a wild hive of bees outside the library’s front door in 2015. I originally thought, okay, well, we have to get rid of these. But in Philadelphia when you get a bee, then you’ve got a beekeeper on your doorstep,” says Thatcher. “We got Don Shump,” founder and owner of the Frankford-based Philadelphia Bee Company.

Shump inspected the library’s colony of wild bees when they were first discovered high up on the front of the building. “The mortar had come loose and bees had set up shop inside,” he says. He removed the bees and sealed the hive, but a couple years later, wild bees chewed through the seal and moved back into the old hive. They’ve been co-existing with the library ever since.

“What we learned about bees and honeybees just endeared us all to them. They’re an altruistic society that’s 98 percent female. If anything, that’s more of what we need right now. We wanted to share that with others, and in particular children,” says Thatcher. During a recent visit, a reporter overheard a man explaining to his small daughter that “the bees are very hard workers and they work together, like at a construction site.”

“You just have to explain what their lives are like, and that whole stinging aspect really just goes out the window,” Thatcher adds. “At first, adults were like, That’s crazy. And now they’re the neighborhood pets.” Sometimes, the library raises funds by selling tiny, hexagonal jars of library-bee honey.

“Amy’s always looking out for new programming ideas. She’s really cool. I want to be her when I grow up.” — Port Richmond resident Angie Carrion

There are more than 150 species of native bees in Philadelphia: blue orchard mason bees that use mud-like masonry to build their nests; squash bees that like to live near squash plants and collect their pollen; solitary carpenter bees that reuse old tunnels in wood; cuckoo bees that take over other bees’ nests; mining bees that live underground; assorted bumble bees; and polyester bees — bees that create waterproof, biodegradable plastic “purses” for their eggs.

The Richmond Library’s honeybees are “mutts,” says Shump. The Academy of Natural Sciences installed the observation hive in the library’s north wall. What are they getting up to there? “They’re making honey. They’re taking care of baby bees,” says Thatcher. “They’re tending to the queen. They’re cleaning. And they’re even removing dead bees.” (That’s the job of “mortician” bees).

Visitors can also glimpse them outside the library in the pollinator garden that Thatcher and Julie Behr from the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society planted in 2019, after learning the bees were flying all the way to Graffiti Park for pollen.

All of these achievements: the observation hive, the garden, the honey for sale, come from Thatcher’s ability to build connections and turn acquaintances into community partners.

Behr told the story of the bees to other horticulturalists, and the Philadelphia Flower Show donated crates of plants to the pollinator garden (they often make plants available to groups after the show). Thatcher, Behr and other neighborhood volunteers planted them. The Philly Tree People donated a Kousa dogwood and a serviceberry tree. “It’s like a spa for bees,” said Thatcher. “They don’t have to go to Graffiti anymore.” The garden, tucked into a side yard across from brick row houses, sports a small metal sign stating that it has been certified by the National Wildlife Foundation.

Near the garden, pages of a brightly colored picture book are fastened along an iron fence at the perfect height for a child’s gaze. “If the library is closed, you can still read your child a picture book as you walk along. And we use the story walk as a way to promote new books or particular holidays, like Easter or one of the Jewish holidays or, you know, [Asian American and] Pacific Islander Heritage Month, African-American History Month … “ Thatcher says.

With help from French pianist Sandrine Erdely-Sayo (Thatcher’s son’s former piano teacher), she acquired a baby grand piano on Craigslist for $200. Thatcher programmed a full season of concerts after the reopening, including the premiere of a piece by neighborhood composer Addison Rider and two concerts with young musicians from Temple’s Boyer College of Music and Dance. Sing Slavic, a West Philly group that leans into the darker, goth folk music of the region, recently performed there too.

Before the bees

In some ways, Thatcher was destined to wind up here. She grew up at 2nd and Snyder, across the street from the Whitman Library, in a rowhouse her single mom Dolores filled with books. She attended Philadelphia’s High School for Creative and Performing Arts because she loved to write stories as a child. She gravitated to library science (she earned her MLIS in 1997 from Queens College) after majoring in English at Temple, then worked as a server. Along the way, she believed “being a librarian was something I could do.”

So did her sister Patricia, Dean of the Library at Stockton University. Today Thatcher and her husband Jason Malcolm live a few blocks from her work. “Most of the patrons here are my neighbors and friends,” she says.

Becky Shaknovich, assistant chief of Neighborhood Library Services Division for the city’s North Philadelphia Libraries, is Thatcher’s boss.

Periodically, you hear a young voice shout, “Bees!!!” When the beehive recently required refurbishment, one girl offered the money in her piggybank to pay for it.

Shaknovich says going into the Port Richmond Library gives her “a feeling like no other library. It’s this warm environment; you feel really welcome. When I come there as a patron — I have a three-year-old — I notice the little details. In the bathroom, Amy’s thought of everything. There’s a tiny toilet seat for potty training, a Diaper Genie, and a changing table with a song on a poster that you sing as you change the baby, which I sang to my child.”

It’s not just Thatcher’s attention to detail, however. “She always has a creative solution; she always has creative ideas for programming — one time she did a program with bubble wrap. She made a bubble wrap suit for herself, and there was bubble wrap everywhere for the kids to pop. She brings what she loves and she makes other people love it.”

Port Richmond resident Angie Carrion agrees. “The library has always been one of my favorite places anywhere,” she says. “As an adult, I appreciate it in a new way — I can join a community to be on a journey to, for instance, learn French. Amy’s always looking out for new programming ideas. She’s really cool. I want to be her when I grow up.”

If she did follow in Thatcher’s footsteps, she’d also have to become a published, Pushcart Prize-nominated, Wheeler Prize-winning poet. Thatcher’s debut collection of published poems, “Weird Girl,” will come out from Ohio State University Press in February, 2027.

Always community hub

When Port Richmond Library opened in 1910, the building hosted as many as 700 children for a single afternoon storytime. In those years, Port Richmond was home to factory workers and dockhands. According to a letter from 1912 on display there, “To most of the children, the Library and the books in it are the most beautiful thing in their lives; they just won’t stay away; to the young men and women who are trying to improve themselves, it is their only hope for better things and to the older working people, their greatest pride in Richmond.”

A century later, the neighborhood has remained mostly working class — although plumbers and construction workers now live alongside social workers, scientists, and art teachers — and the library remains a light for the neighborhood’s children.

The William Penn Foundation funded a renovation of the children’s section, with an indoor play area that boasts toys, a tiny slide for toddlers, a play kitchen, and a hopscotch mat. Young visitors can check out little backpacks filled with books and materials about birdwatching, reading, or oceans. There are still storytimes for babies and older children, but now there are dance parties, too.

Periodically, you hear a young voice shout, “Bees!!!” When the beehive recently required refurbishment, one girl offered the money in her piggybank to pay for it.

Thatcher is rightly proud of what she’s fostered. “People naturally come in here, but then the folks that come in form communities amongst themselves,” she says. “A lot of the parents that come in with young children are not native to Philadelphia; their uncles or sisters or brothers don’t live in the area. There’s a connection formed with those parents, so that, if there’s an emergency, one parent will watch another parent’s child. It’s amazing. And it’s the patrons that do that themselves, really.”

“People naturally come in here, but then the folks that come in form communities amongst themselves.” — Librarian Amy Thatcher

On a larger scale, what would benefit the Philadelphia libraries?

“Absolutely, funding … The City should provide more money particularly for the maintenance of buildings, instead of just having an emergency happen and the branch closes,” Thatcher says. ”These buildings are old. And we need money for that.”

The nearby Fishtown Library closed in the early frigid weeks of 2026 because of HVAC problems; it re-opened in February. When the Cecil B. Moore branch closed for almost two months in 2025 because of a broken HVAC system, Philadelphia City Councilmember Jeffery Young Jr. proposed demolishing it and replacing it with a multi-purpose library complex. Hundreds of neighbors, many who had visited the library as children, crowded into community meetings and successfully opposed the move, seeking to preserve and renovate the historic building. That library now has temporary heaters.

So, while Thatcher might stand out for her solutions and creativity and energy, Port Richmond is not the only Philly neighborhood that deeply loves its library.

The City received the message: Mayor Parker proposed — and has just signed into law — a 2027 fiscal budget with $33 million to replace old heating and air conditioning systems in libraries. The Cecil B. Moore branch is at the top of the list.

Most librarians don’t come to their careers to deal with HVAC issues. Still, says Thatcher, it’s a dream job that’s “much more glamorous than it seems. We get to do cool things. What you learn in library school isn’t exactly what you apply; what you learn on the job is more important, and that you can be creative. And it’s a good way to change. Change your community, make a community happen.”

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