IT WAS SYMBOLIC. Passaic Mayor Samuel Rivera and I were standing in front of the Reid Memorial Library in the rain unable to get inside. The iron gates were padlocked, perhaps a harbinger of the future.

Now's a good time to ask: Why should I care about a 100-year-old-plus branch library in the City of Passaic? The answer: because literacy matters, because public libraries are secular temples of literature, because ... well, because you should.

Passaic is not a rich city. It is a city of immigrants -- nearly 70 percent of the city's population is Hispanic. It is a crowded, densely populated place with limited parking and poor vision when it comes to caring about its library system.

Three years ago, the State Library reviewed Passaic's library system and listed several areas needing reform. Depending upon whom you talk to, you'll hear a different spin on what's happened since. Everyone will tell you the library doesn't get enough money. Some folks think that's OK.

So on the day after torrential rains started a week of floods, Rivera and I met at the Reid. We took refuge in his SUV until the library's executive director, Alan Bobowski, arrived with a man with a key. Bobowski was late because the main library building was flooding.

The Reid is a wonderful structure, with a soaring skylight that was painted over during World War II. Someone should tell the library board that the war is over.

The building was not under water. Rivera, Bobowski and I climbed around the basement, we looked inside a musty ethnic museum, we scanned stacks of out-of-date tomes, and we saw a space with extraordinary possibilities.

The library needs a new roof and it needs some structural repair. But mostly, it needs a champion.

The mayor, while guarded, was impressed. Not necessarily with the way the library has been run, but he recognized the building could become an important part of the life of the surrounding community, a community that is not rushing to see the Hungarian Museum on the second floor. Rivera said he had been misled as to the library's condition. An earlier visit, one not prompted by a journalist, would have remedied that.

There's a study under way that may give insight into how much money is needed to repair the Reid. Maybe it is $1 million, maybe $2 million. Bobowski would rather see a new library built than a patch job done on the Reid. Passaic's infamous porno movie theater, the Montauk, will be hosting a "Sound of Music" sing-a-long before Passaic approves the construction of a new library.

Recreating the Reid is the only alternative to dumping parts of the library's collection into a boys and girls club, as has been proposed.

Rivera suggested that an association of Mexican business owners might take the library's needs under its wing. When he wants to, Rivera can make things happen. When he wants to, City Councilman and Assemblyman Gary Schaer can prevent things from happening.

In the past, there has been little love shown for the library from either Rivera or Schaer. The City Council and library board need to grasp the importance of the Reid. The only way that will happen is if enough people care about this aging, yet noble structure.

Parking around the Reid Library is nearly non-existent. But make the trip. Make the trip from Hackensack, from Fair Lawn, from Wayne -- the Reid in all its sadness is why our parents and grandparents supported libraries and took us hand-in-hand as children to get library cards.

Books matter and so do the buildings housing them. The second floor of the Reid was designed solely for community events. Without an elevator, it has limited use in 2007. Elevators, like more books, can be ordered and bought. History cannot.

A visit to the Reid is a trip back to a time when North Jersey communities, rich and poor, built temples for books and valued community spaces within walking distance of their homes.

Before the malls of Paramus, before ubiquitous Starbucks franchises with laptop-laden, latte-drinking patrons, there were neighborhood libraries like the Reid.

It should not be patched up. It should not be closed. It should be recreated for a new generation of young readers and families.

Anything is possible -- I learned that in a book.

Alfred P. Doblin is the editorial page editor of The Record. Contact him at doblin@northjersey.com.