Photo: Beth Nawalinski.
Madeleine L'Engle's grandchildren pose with the plaque designating the Diocesan House as a Literary Landmark: (from l.) Léna Roy, Charlotte Jones Voiklis, and Edward Jones.

On November 29 the Diocesan House of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine on New York City’s Upper West Side was dedicated as a Literary Landmark, in honor of the nearly four decades that Madeleine L’Engle (1918–2007) wrote and worked in its library. Gathering on the day that would have been L’Engle’s 94th birthday, members of the book industry as well as her friends and family remembered the prolific, award-winning writer at a dedication ceremony at the Cathedral, which was followed by an Evensong service and reception.
The idea to designate the Diocesan House as a Literary Landmark originated with Rocco Staino, director of the Empire State Center for the Book, an affiliate of the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress. Staino has been instrumental in achieving Literary Landmark status for several places identified with children’s books, including New York’s Little Red Lighthouse for the book by Hildegarde H. Swift and Lynd Ward and the Plaza Hotel for Kay Thompson’s Eloise, as well as Boston Commons for Robert McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings. “In 2011 we inducted Madeleine L’Engle into the New York State Writers Hall of Fame – another project of the Center for the Book,” Staino explains. “And I thought it would be nice to name this Literary Landmark during the 50th anniversary year of the publication of A Wrinkle in Time.”
Full piece at PW