A dream library, demolished
Pour one out for Cincinnati's Old Main Library.
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“Cincinnati possesses the largest, best-arranged, and only fire-proof public library in the country,”1 proclaimed Harper’s Weekly in 1874 when the stunning cast-iron reading room opened. Architect James McLaughlin had transformed an unfinished opera house into America’s leading library with impressive Victorian architecture, an 80-foot glass ceiling, and four-story stacks to house over 250,000 books.
This marvelous structure stood for only a short time, unceremoniously torn down in the mid-1950s to become the symbol of misguided midcentury urbanism—a parking lot. It took decades for people to realize what was lost: Cincinnati’s Old Main Library.
A repurposed opera house
“There is every probability that [Truman B.] Handy’s new Opera house will be erected,” reported The Cincinnati Enquirer in June 1866. “Already there are nearly $50,000 toward the enterprise.”
Turns out, things didn’t turn out so well for Truman Handy, who announced just a few months later that funds were scarce, and the opera house had to be put on hold.
Handy’s enterprise went bankrupt, and the opera house was left incomplete2. The Cincinnati public library stepped in and purchased the unfinished building at 629 Vine Street for $80,000. They tapped local architect James W. McLaughlin to finish the space and made waves by poaching William Frederick Poole from the Boston Athenaeum as head librarian and design consultant.3
The soft opening, 1870
What resulted was a stunning display of cast-iron architecture, but it did not open all at once. The library debuted in 1870 with spaces like newspaper reading rooms and men’s and women’s reading rooms. “All these rooms [have ceilings that are] eighteen feet high, heavily wainscotted with black walnut, and are very handsome,” reported The Enquirer.4
The main hall, though, needed more time: “In the Fine Art Hall…there now hangs an interior view of the main room of the Cincinnati library as it is to be. A grand marble paved hall …and arched crystal roof above.”5
McLaughlin, a founding member of the Cincinnati American Institute of Architects chapter, was influenced in part by Henri Labrouste’s use of iron in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, which was completed in 1868. “It will be, says Mr. Poole, superintendent of the boasted Boston [Athenaeum] Library, the finest institution of the kind in the country.”6
The main hall opens, 1874
The 160-foot-long reading room was complete by 1874 with striking architectural elements like a large spiral staircase and delicate iron columns that soared to the 80-foot-heigh ceiling. Stylized Corinthian capitals supported a canopy of decorative glass, and the iron framework of the building allowed wall space to be devoted to windows and floor space for housing books, as Harper’s Weekly reported:
“The first impression made upon the mind on entering this hall is its immense capacity for storing books in its five tiers of alcoves, and then the eye is attracted and gratified by its graceful and carefully studied architecture, which provides that no portion of the shelving is deprived of a proper amount of light.”7
Maximizing natural light was a priority. “The whole ceiling is of ornamented glass, and as the alcoves are not floored over, the rear shelves in the lower alcoves, which in the Astor Library and the Boston Public Library are as dark as Egypt8, are here as well lighted as any in the hall.”
The marble checkerboard floor was beautiful and functional as it was heated by a series of chambers and steam pipes underneath. The radiant heat kept the lower section of the reading room warm while the upper portions remained cool for the preservation of book bindings.
The wrecking ball, 1955
While beautiful, the library quickly outgrew the space. The collection ballooned to over 1 million volumes, and auxiliary stacks were shoehorned wherever possible in the main reading room. It makes for a good photo, but not the best library experience.
The windows didn’t provide much ventilation, especially in the summertime, and the coal furnaces generated soot that had to be cleaned.9
It took less than 25 years for people to start calling for a new facility, and there was no Cincinnati Preservation Association to stop them.10 Dreams of a new library continued through the 1930s, but official city approvals didn’t come through until a bit later. By 1946, the site of Old Main Library was up for sale, and soon after, the architect Carl Vitz was hired to design a new building on a separate site.
Unlike with Pennsylvania Station in New York City, not even a coalition of amateur preservationists fought to save Old Main Library. Instead, everything from the marble floors to wood paneling and desks was offered for sale: “Stained glass windows in the building were offered free to both the city and the new library. Neither wanted them… ready sale was made to a private buyer,” reported one article. “Lovers of the antique and utilitarian are visiting the building daily to pick up souvenirs or possibly materials they can use.”11
Demolition started in March of 1955, lasting about 100 days—longer than expected due to the quality of the original building’s construction: “It was knocked down, pulled down, and shook down hard, as was predicated. It was a sturdy old structure, built as an opera house and built to last,” said one article. “Now, the vacant area will be paved for a parking lot12.”13
Oh wait… That was really pretty, though.
“Back in the last century they built libraries as monuments and they failed to fulfill the requirements of libraries,” the new library’s architect Carl Vitz said in a 1953 article. “Today we build libraries to satisfy the needs of the people who patronize them not to serve as monuments. And those needs are best satisfied in a clean, modern building which isn’t cluttered up with unnecessary walls taking up essential floor space.” 14
The facility could accommodate the whole 1,650,000 volume collection, which was probably quite exciting, practically speaking, but the new library is just another Brutalist midcentury institution with narrow strips of windows.15
While the lack of appreciation for Old Main Library is frustratingly disappointing, to say the least—they really couldn’t have preserved the old while annexing a new building?—much has changed recently, thanks in large part to photos of the main reading room circulating on the internet and social media.
“Judging by the photos, it would have been easy to get lost in Old Main Library,” said one 2017 opinion piece in The Enquirer. “Where to go first? Up the spiral staircases to the shelves four stories tall teeming with books? Slip into the alcoves for a quiet place to read? Or just stand in the middle of the main hall, head cocked back to gaze at the atrium skylight?”16
In 2005, a stained glass window from the men’s reading room was returned to the library after being rediscovered in a local location of The Old Spaghetti Factory. “I can’t tell you how many times I saw them when I was eating dinner with my family,” said former library director Robert Stonestreet. “I knew they had to be from the library, but how they got there, I don’t know.”17 . It seems the “private buyer” who purchased the unwanted window also loved Italian-American food.
The windows were carefully restored and displayed in the new library after the restaurant closed. “Perhaps nobody realized what a treasure this was to the library,”18 said now retired library director Kimber Fender. That may be true, but what’s even more clear is that nobody realized that the Old Main Library itself was the real treasure.
"The Cincinnati Public Library," Harper's Weekly, March 21, 1874.
Bertha Russell would’ve never let this happen!
""As it is and as it is to be" Public Library introduction" Newspapers.com. The Cincinnati Enquirer, September 26, 1870. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-cincinnati-enquirer-as-it-is-and-as/167125732/.
Newspapers.com, "As it is and as it is to be," Cincinnati Enquirer, September 26, 1870.
Ibid.
Ibid.
"The Cincinnati Public Library," Harper's Weekly, March 21, 1874.
Egyptomania was approaching its peak in the late 19th century.
Bill Rinehart, "OKI Wanna Know: What Happened to the Old Cincinnati Library?" WVXU, June 15, 2022, https://www.wvxu.org/podcast/oki-wanna-know/2022-06-15/oki-wanna-know-what-happened-old-cincinnati-library.
"New Library opens " Newspapers.com. The Cincinnati Enquirer, February 12, 1955. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-cincinnati-enquirer-new-library-open/167126472/.
"Shakespeare to survive library razing" Newspapers.com. The Cincinnati Post, March 7, 1955. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-cincinnati-post-shakespeare-to-survi/167125328/.
*SCREAMS*
"Demolition of Old Main Library - Started in March. " Newspapers.com. The Cincinnati Enquirer, July 3, 1955. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-cincinnati-enquirer-demolition-of-ol/167203412/.
"New library architect " Newspapers.com. The Cincinnati Enquirer, March 15, 1953. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-cincinnati-enquirer-new-library-arch/167126251/.
Ibid.
"Old Main Library - A 4 Story Wonder, nostalgia" Newspapers.com. The Cincinnati Enquirer, February 3, 2017. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-cincinnati-enquirer-old-main-library/167203186/.
"Old Main Library stained glass returns" Newspapers.com. The Cincinnati Enquirer, January 17, 2005. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-cincinnati-enquirer-old-main-library/167126551/.
Ibid.
I grew up in Cincy and didn't know this; what a loss! I did, however, eat at that Old Spaghetti Factory many times, and probably under the glow of those stained glass windows... Enjoying your posts thus far!
When I saw the library’s Brutalist replacement I wanted to cry! No shade to Brutalism…it has its place. Just not on top of the ruins of such historic architecture. Thanks for sharing this story & these gorgeous images