A Step Back in Time

A colleague recently shared this post and these photos of PLCH's old Main Library with our department.  I was so in awe when I saw the photos.  I had heard people reference how beautiful the original Public Library was, but I had no idea just how breathtaking it was when it was still standing.  Here's a few of my personal favorites...

 Old Main Library from the 1950s [source]

 The Vestibule, which led into the Main Hall [source]

 The gorgeous Main Hall, note the pillars, spiral staircases, and stained glass [source]

 The stacks in the Main Hall, look at that light beaming in [source]

 View of the Main Hall reading area from above [source]

Entrance to the Main Library, with branch pages on the steps reading [source]

Main Library Art Room, on the third floor [source]

When I first saw these photos (and the rest from PLCH's "'Old'" Main Library" set) I think my jaw dropped and I might have drooled a little.  I mean, come on, how gorgeous was the old Main Library!?  The details.  The light cascading through the windows.  The stained glass.  But soon after I was hit with a pang of sadness.  I was sad that this treasure was gone, that I never got to see it.  It made me wish that more libraries had done what the Indianapolis Public Library did; keep and even restore your small beautiful treasure of a library and add onto it rather than tearing it down to make way for something larger and more modern.  Still, I am glad that the Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County is making such an effort to document their past, as well as Cincinnati's past.  These photos are truly a step back in time and I encourage you to take a minute or two and look through the photos of the old Main Library on their flickr page.  Wouldn't you have loved to sit in that Main Hall and thumb through pages of some novel?

*In case you don't know what the modern Main Library looks like, here's a photo circa 1997.