Teens dance on the library rooftop during Teen Takeover. Photos by Jonathan Blanc and Chae Kihn, NYPL

It started in Fall 2021 as COVID-19 restrictions in New York City waned and the renovated Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library (SNFL) in midtown Manhattan had been open a few months after a lengthy pandemic delay. Friday Fright Night was an all-ages Halloween event. Just the typical stuff during regular library hours—little kids in costume, teens handing out candy, fake spiderwebs everywhere.

“It was a Friday, and it was beautiful chaos,” says Ricci Yuhico, managing librarian of young adult services at SNFL, New York Public Library's largest circulating library. 

A teen volunteer assists with the night's events.

For that first event, Yuhico wanted to bring some fun and normalcy back to kids in a city still traumatized by the impact of COVID-19. Seventy young patrons attended the event held in the children’s and teen area on the lower level of the library. By all measures, it was a success, but the older kids saw an opportunity for more.

“The teen volunteers said, ‘Hey, why don't we make this even bigger?’” says Yuhico, who runs SNFL's Teen Center and is not one to shut down her young patrons’ ideas and aspirations.

Bigger? Why not? What did the teens want to do?

First, she says, they wanted an after-hours event, like the library had for adults. Secondly, they wanted to bust out of the lower level, and make it a multi-floor party in the seven-story building. The night should include dancing, karaoke, a costume contest, a photo booth, and of course food and drink, according to the kids. Yuhico was happy to help them make it a reality.

Throughout the process of planning, Yuhico taught the team of 20 volunteers ages 14 to 19 about all facets of planning an event. They needed to consider budget and logistics. More floors meant needing more activities and decorations to fill the space and thinking about the ease or difficulty of people getting from one place to another, as well as security, where to put snacks and drinks, etc. They worked together with vendors to decide what to order and how to work around allergies to make sure the event was safe for all. They designated quiet areas for kids who needed a break from the sound and crowd. They DIY’d where necessary. For example, they really wanted a photo booth, so they created it themselves.

The Library After Hours: Teen Takeover ended up being on the lower level, first floor, and the rooftop with security operating a private, express elevator from the first floor to the rooftop access. The first event in 2022 had about 400 kids. Teens must register but there is no cap on attendance. Yuhico, her staff, and teen volunteers budget and plan for 500 attendees. The second year saw another 400 and Yuhico expects the same this year in what has become an eagerly anticipated annual event on the Saturday night before Halloween.

This year, along with the dancing, karaoke, and costumes, there will be movies, games, and trivia. Yuhico couldn't make the requested animal farm happen, but a local rescue will bring dogs and be just one of the organizations and community partners setting up tables with activities and information about their work.
 

A costumed attendee sits in the SNFL Teen Center.

A special space

The SNFL Teen Center is certainly not the typical public library space.  It has a recording studio and media lab that allows patrons to record music, produce a video or movie, and use photo editing software. There are conference rooms with smart boards for kids to study together or go over presentations, comfortable, reconfigurable furniture allows kids to sit alone or in groups. The space brings in young adults from all five New York City boroughs.

The center runs many events besides Teen Takeover, including the TeenMADE Solstice Showcase each June that allows the young patrons to show what they’ve made in the recording studio and media lab, movie nights, Quiet Queers (a pride-themed hangout for “teens who would rather stay in than go to a party”), and an annual K-pop celebration.

But it’s the day-to-day operations where the center really makes an impact, offering a refuge for kids in need of a place to meet friends and manage demanding academic assignments and expectations. When SLJ visited, a teen in the recording studio had traveled nearly an hour by subway to work on his music; another group of kids sat around a table playing a game and talking; inside the conference room, students studied together; and a solitary reader lounged with a book in a reading cubby under the stairs. Flyers for different programs hung on the wall and Post-it notes near the college assistance section showed where teens had been accepted. 

One of the reasons Yuhico loves the Teen Takeover so much is it comes at a time when kids need a break.

“October is a very high, rigorous study time for the kids,” she says.

Last year, as the teen volunteers decorated, one studying patron told Yuhico they wanted to stay to keep working.

“I said, ‘Okay, fine, here's a wristband. You can stay after closing and study,’” says Yuhico. “We're still a library.”

During Teen Takeover, Yuhico makes sure there is a staff member at the circulation desk because each year, along with those dancing and singing karaoke, there are a few kids browsing the stacks and checking out books.

Each year after the event, Yuhico meets with the teen organizers to see what they liked and what they would do differently, tweaking things each year to incorporate their responses. The murder mystery, for example, was too labor intensive so it is no longer a part of the event, and karaoke needed to be in a more open space so it was moved to a different location for the second year.

Ricci Yuhico, far left, hands out certificates at the Teen Center's TeenMADE Solstice Showcase.  In recognition of her work, the New York Times named her one of six New Yorkers who made the city a “better, cooler, fairer place” in 2023, and this past June she was one of four librarians honored by the Ford's Theatre Society in Washington, D.C.

A scalable event

This may seem like an event that can only be held in a big city with a big building, big budget, and big group of teen volunteers. And certainly, at this scale, that is true. But this is an event that can be adapted for any library, "if you get a lot of buy-in from organizers, community groups, and nonprofits,” Yuhico says.

Take advantage of people who want to supplement your work and are willing to pitch in and look to the high school leadership groups and teens in need of community service hours, she says.

“Can you bring in those kids to help you organize different crafts and activities for a party?” Yuhico says. “You may not necessarily go all out with the bells and the whistles and the lights and the production, but the most critical part of that is not necessarily the flashiness.”

When asked one of the attendees what his favorite part was, the teen told her that was just being with people he didn’t know and having fun.

“[It’s] certainly even more powerful in our post-COVID world, right?” Yuhico says. “What is most important is that you create a safe space that is fun. There will always be kids who feel like, ‘Oh, this is not cool,’ but you're also going to make space for kids who do think that it's cool, who just want another place to have fun with their friends.”

These years will go by quickly and they are pressure-filled for these young adults, says Yuhico, so it’s important to remember to give these teens time and space to relax and enjoy themselves.

“This is such a stressful time, and yet there are very rarely any spaces for them to have joy and have happiness and to be in that moment of youth,” says Yuhico.

While there are the typical in-school celebrations such as homecoming and prom, she wants to create celebrations for them outside of that space, help kids learn to build community, and also take the time to break from the demands of school and family and do something fun. The events are fun, but they also offer another life lesson from the library.

“Being a successful person also means being able to successfully find joy,” she says.