A highlight of our docent tours is Ann Preston's Illuminations, a series of lanterns that descend the southern escalator landings of the Tom Bradley Wing. Each lamp is 13.5' tall, and contains lights…
March 8 marks International Women’s Day, a global celebration that has taken place yearly since the early 1900s. IWD celebrates women’s social, economic, cultural, and political achievements and…
“You do what you think is right and let the law catch up”—Thurgood Marshall Thurgood Marshall was the first African-American appointed to the Supreme Court in 1967. On his way to serving on the high…
2017 marks the hundredth anniversary of the death, at the age of 49, of Scott Joplin, one of America's first great composers, and the composer of arguably the first important American opera…
What are "air rights," and why are they important to Los Angeles's iconic Central Library building? The short answer is that without the funds the City received for the sale of the development rights…
I love taking tours through the old children’s room in the Central Library because it’s the only place in the building where one can stand close enough to the ceiling to see how artist Julian Garnsey…
November is Native American Heritage Month, a time to celebrate the cultures, histories, traditions, and achievements of Native people. We also honor veterans this month, on November 11. This is the…
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…
