Vermont Square Branch

About this property

Vermont Square Branch Library is the oldest branch library in the Los Angeles Public Library system. Located about a mile southwest of the University of Southern California campus, in the Vermont Square district, it was built in 1913 with a grant from Andrew Carnegie. One of three surviving Carnegie libraries in Los Angeles, it has been designated a Historic-Cultural Monument and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Vermont Square Branch was designated as a Historic-Cultural Monument (#264) by the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission in June 1983 as the oldest remaining library in the city system. In 1987, the Lincoln Heights Branch and several other branch libraries in Los Angeles were added to the National Register of Historic Places as part of a thematic group submission. The application noted Vermont Branchwas as "a one-story structure designed in the Italian Renaissance Revival and Mediterranean Revival style with Prairie style proportions." It rests on a raised foundation and is topped by a red tile roof supported by broad overhanging eaves. The symmetrical facade is divided into three sections with the center portion protruding slightly. The center portion is fronted with terra cotta blocks with geometric patterns reminiscent of Classical motifs. The entry is located on a landing midway up the stairs. The top half of the staircase is located inside the building. Both wings are horizontally divided with two different facing materials. Cream-colored glazed brick covers the exterior walls below the window sills. Long vertical windows are arranged high on the walls, grouped in bands of five on either side of the entry. On March 1, 1913, the Vermont Square Branch, the first of the Carnegie branch libraries built in Los Angeles, was opened to the public. ... At six o'clock the doors were opened and hundreds of enthusiastic men, women and children crowded in. It had been planned to have the program in the auditorium but since the crowd made this impossible, the speakers sought refuge within the charging desk where they spoke from an improvised platform. ... The newness of the library, furniture and books were a real luxury to us who had been used to the gloomy, rented store buildings but there was one crumpled rose leaf which marred our serenity of spirit. There was no cork carpet on the floors and the noise of the steel tipped chairs on the cement was terrific. The handsome building is of fireproof construction, the exterior being cased in cream-colored glazed brick and white tile. The roof is of the genuine Spanish type, constructed of hollow red tile, set off by a heavy frieze of open woodwork under the eaves, to match the coping around the top of the open-air reading room on the northeast corner, both being painted a soft green color in pleasant contrast to the exterior finish. ... Surrounded by a park filled with flowers and shrubbery, the building is an ornament to the well-built neighborhood.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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