Despite everything, the Haskell remains a working institution. A place to check out books, attend puppet shows, hear lectures, or catch a community theater production. Its mission—education and cultural exchange—hasn’t changed.
What’s changed is how hard it is to access that mission. What once took a short walk now requires paperwork. What was once neighborly is now bureaucratic.
That shift matters.
“The symbolism of being told to enter through the back door is not lost on us,” said one patron. “It says: you’re not welcome the way you were.”
It also says something larger. About what borders have become. About what gets lost when policies erase relationships.
The Haskell isn’t alone in being split by a border. The Peace Chapel on the Manitoba–North Dakota line. The Hotel Arbez between France and Switzerland. A conference room in the DMZ between North and South Korea. These spaces share something rare: a willingness to acknowledge the border without enforcing its separation.
But none are quite like the Haskell.
This building was built to be shared. Built to connect. Built to ignore the map.
And though one door is closing, that idea still stands.
Inside the reading room, the black tape is still there. The children still climb over it. The visitors still smile. The performers still bow to applause from two countries.
Maybe the adults will catch up.
“A line doesn’t divide us. It never has.” — Chris Blais, American patron