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Summer, along with hot temperatures and family vacations, usually brings major blockbusters.
Did you know that when Central Library opened in 1926, the entrance at 530 South Hope Street was both the "front door" and mailing address? Patrons entered the gates at Hope Street and walked up a long sloping ramp to a circulation desk at the center of the lower level.
“The point of fiction is to give the reader for a few hours the chance to be somebody else, to broaden and deepen his understanding of himself and the strangers among whom he has to pass his days. The best novels do this now as they have always done it. It is a noble thing.”
In July of 1926, Angelenos eagerly awaited the opening of the Los Angeles Central Library's new building, the first permanent home for the fifty-year-old library.
If you drive through the neighborhood around the intersection of Adams and San Pedro Street today, you will see a strip mall and on the opposite corner a clothing store. Everywhere you look, there are businesses with signs in Spanish, reflecting the predominantly Latino population.
If you live in Los Angeles or any other major city, you may sometimes dream of abandoning the traffic, congestion, and high cost of living for a simpler life.
This year, 2016, marks the 30th anniversary of the most catastrophic fire of a library building in the U.S. It occurred at our Central Library.
On the morning of April 29, 1986, librarian Dan Dupill was answering telephone calls at the Literature Reference Desk at Central Library. The antiquated phone system was slow, and the volume of calls high in those pre-Internet days, so getting through to a Reference Librarian could be a challenge.
If you've taken one of our free library tours, we've probably pointed out the quotation over the Flower Street entrance from Lucretius:
“Like runners they bear on the lamp of life."
April 18th marks National Columnists’ Day, started in memory of Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Ernie Pyle, who was killed in World War II. His eloquence in his subject matter, the lives of everyday men in the world of war, struck a chord in America.