In Part 1 of our post we looked at sculpture on the library’s exterior as it reflects an overall theme, The Light of Learning. Now we will move to the building’s interior and examine the symbolic…
Since I began leading docent tours eight years ago at the Los Angeles Central Library, some tour goers ask—is hidden Masonic symbolism contained in the art that decorates the library? Unwilling to get…
Most visitors to the Central Library’s Maguire Gardens see Jud Fine's “Spine” installation and the unique collection of fountains that grace the gardens, but not everyone notices tucked away in the…
The doors of wisdom are never shut.—Benjamin FranklinThe classic icon of wisdom, the owl, is found in several places around the original Bertram Goodhue Library building. These owls are not hidden…
Los Angeles has been a multi-cultural, polyglot city from the earliest times. In 1781, the pobladores, a small group of racially diverse farmers from Sonora, Mexico, arrived near the banks of the…
I recently completed an online heraldry class conducted by the University of Strathclyde, and I learned a great deal that will be helpful to me as a genealogy librarian. Heraldry is the study of…
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…
“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…
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! The library was dedicated on July 15…
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…
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.Fire and library experts had been warning for years that…
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…
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." Seems like an old…
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…
