Cahuenga Branch - Construction and Opening

Construction and Opening

The Caheunga Branch was the last of six branch libraries built with a $210,000 grant from steel baron Andrew Carnegie. The architect was Clarence H. Russell (1874–1942), who was also associated with Norman F. Marsh in building the Venice canals. Though the building and equipment were paid for through the Carnegie grant, the land itself was purchased by the city with the cost being paid through an assessment district. The library was originally planned for the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and Vermont Avenue, but the land at Santa Monica and Madison was chosen "because it was less expensive."

Constructed of brick and concrete at a cost of $34,000, the library was built in a clover leaf or butterfly pattern "whereby the entire floor may be supervised from a centrally located delivery desk." The first floor included a children's department, overflow reading room, fiction section, reference room and adult reading room. The basement contained an auditorium with a seating capacity of 300 persons. The branch also included an "open air reading room" at the northwest corner on the Madison Avenue side. The building's exterior also presents an impressive facade. The building is designed in the Italian Renaissance Revival style with a high basement, a low-pitched overhanging hip roof of clay tiles, and a tawny-colored tapestry brick facing. "The front elevation is symmetrical, and is dominated by a large, formal entranceway featuring a double stairway with matching volutes leading up from the sidewalk to the portal where it forms a veranda with classical balustrade."

The city's Handbook of the Branch Libraries described the Cahuenga Branch as follows: "It is a substantial and dignified Italian faced building faced with brick laid in pattern and panels, with a grand exterior central stairway leading upward to the main entrance and down to the basement club room and auditorium."

At the opening ceremony on December 4, 1916, City Librarian Everett Perry gave a speech welcoming the East Hollywood community to the new library. Perry encouraged the community to make full use of the books and other resources, including the auditorium and children's story hour. In describing the scope of the books available at the branch, Perry made comments that might have been viewed a century later as sexist or puritanical:

"Your boy can borrow here books on wireless telegraphy or raising rabbits; your girl, books on sewing or cooking. ... In the room just behind the main desk will be shelved the fiction collection. Do not be surprised if you do not find here the latest novel that you have heard discussed or seen advertised. There is much trash published nowadays in the form of novels and it is the policy of this library to exclude such materials from its collections, and to buy only what is wholesome. There are far more novels at the same time wholesome, entertaining and inspiring, than any of us can find time to read, and it is not necessary to turn to the coarse and sensational."

Carnegie paid for a total of six libraries in Los Angeles, and only three of the Carnegie libraries remain: Cahuenga, Vermont Square and Lincoln Heights.