The Thomas Jefferson Library opened on January 4, 1954 in the rear of the Family Barber Shop in the Graham Road Shopping Center. As the library grew, it moved into an apartment in Jefferson Village Apartments. In 1962, a new building was constructed on Arlington Boulevard and was renovated in 2010. In 2015 Thomas Jefferson Library commemorated the completion of the Gateway to Freedom Project and the 40th anniversary of the Vietnamese refugees’ resettlement in the United States. The Gateway to Freedom project began in 2010 with the Vietnamese Americans of Metropolitan Washington, DC, the National Institute of Administration Alumni Association, East Coast USA, and the Quang Da Mutual Association. Thanks to money raised from the project, the Vietnamese language collection expanded and the engraved brick walkway was completed, a symbolic “gateway to freedom.” Thomas Jefferson serves a growing and increasingly diverse neighborhood.
