The Cecil B. Moore Library is special. Protect it at all costs.

I pulled into a parking space directly in front of the Cecil B. Moore Library in North Philly. I stepped out of my car and into a dimly lit lobby where I spotted a rack of books with the word free on them. Only take one, I told myself, before selecting a title and a couple of packets of flower seeds, also on the giveaway shelf.

Since it was my first time inside, I paused a bit to take it all in. The peaceful, welcoming energy in the library is a stark contrast to the street noise and dilapidated, shuttered buildings outside. A children’s section with low tables and a rock climbing wall is on one side of the room, and the other is dedicated to adults and teenagers. As I walked around, a little boy beamed as he glanced up from his video game and announced, “I come here every day.”

I smiled back at that. Libraries are my happy place, too. My mother was a school librarian who introduced me early to the joys of wandering through the stacks. The public library was one of the few places my siblings and I were allowed to walk to on our own as kids. I’ve never been to a library where I didn’t feel at home.

The Cecil B. Moore Library is no exception. It may be small and desperately in need of renovations, but it’s an oasis in a neighborhood that desperately needs it.

Originally known as the Columbia Avenue Branch, it’s a community hub. Residents meet there. Kids learn to cook in the basement. Students flock there after school. I get why many Sharswood and Brewerytown, North Central, and other residents are so fiercely protective of it.

They were forced to go without it for a few months after it closed Jan. 21 because of a defunct HVAC system. It reopened earlier this month after the Free Library installed temporary commercial heaters.

A few days before it reopened, community residents met with Councilmember Jeffery Young Jr. at a raucous town hall at Wayland Baptist Church, where Young presented three different improvement options — including a controversial proposal to develop the library into a multi-use building that includes affordable housing.

Colocating libraries with housing is a relatively new concept that has been happening in cities such as San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. The prospect of doing something similar with the Cecil B. Moore branch alarmed some residents. “Neighbors by and large during the town hall said: ‘Hey, we want a renovation and that’s it. Just give us that,‘” recalled Cierra Freeman, director of the Brewerytown Sharswood Neighborhood Coalition.

With the gentrification taking place in the neighborhood, some residents are concerned about potentially losing an important physical space.

“Nobody in this neighborhood wants housing on top,” said Kate Goodman, a member of AFSCME District Council 47 Local 2187. “We haven’t heard anybody say that’s what they want.”

I am happy to report that, according to Young, the proposal to build housing on top of the library is now off the table. “I never wanted to take away the community’s voice in the process, and I never wanted to force something on a community that a community doesn’t want,” he told me Wednesday. “I believe that my job as an elected official is to present the community with options.”

The remaining two development options for the library include renovating the existing structure, which opened in 1962, or building an entirely new building, with space for more programming that’s also befitting the technological needs of the 21st century.

Young, who grew up in James W. Johnson Homes, said he is committed to keeping the library open as things get sorted out. Meanwhile, he said his office is looking for spaces that could serve as a temporary satellite location once work begins.

Whatever happens needs to get underway sooner rather than later. The city won’t soon forget how, two years ago, some youngsters beat an elderly man with a traffic cone in the wee hours one morning, not too far away from the library. James Lambert Jr., 73, died from his injuries.

Libraries can and should be considered part of Philly’s anti-violence initiatives. But they need to be open to do so. The Cecil B. Moore Library is too important to the neighborhood and to the city for its doors to be closed any longer than absolutely necessary.