25 Gorgeous Photographs of the Cincinnati's Old Main Public Library

[GMDino]

(I love old photographs and this is one of my favorite sites to check daily.)

Can anyone tell me why this beauty was torn down?

I didn't bother looking up the history of it yet...


http://www.vintag.es/2018/04/cincinnati-old-main-library.html

[*michaelsean*]

(04-10-2018, 09:14 PM)GMDino Wrote: (I love old photographs and this is one of my favorite sites to check daily.)

Can anyone tell me why this beauty was torn down?

I didn't bother looking up the history of it yet...


http://www.vintag.es/2018/04/cincinnati-old-main-library.html

I think Joni Mitchell answered your question 50 years ago.  Literally in this case.

I'm guessing the library decided to move to it's current location for more room, and perhaps in the 50's they didn't care about preserving old buildings as much as we do now. Or maybe that particular building was deemed an eyesore, and the property too valuable to just let sit. Too bad though.

[GMDino]

(04-11-2018, 09:29 AM)michaelsean Wrote: I think Joni Mitchell answered your question 50 years ago.  Literally in this case.

I'm guessing the library decided to move to it's current location for more room, and perhaps in the 50's they didn't care about preserving old buildings as much as we do now.  Or maybe that particular building was deemed an eyesore, and the property too valuable to just let sit.  Too bad though.

A little more info.

http://www.messynessychic.com/2014/06/17/seriously-though-how-did-the-most-beautiful-library-in-america-get-demolished/

Quote:When the end of the road came for the Old Main library, there was no resistance, no protests were organised, not even a letter to the board. Talks for a new library building had already begun 30 years earlier when the collection had started to outgrow the building. Books were being stacked out of reach, the 19th century ventilation system was failing and the paint was peeling. A series of legal and financial problems, post-war inflation and squabbles over a new location, bought the Old Main building some time. However as the plans for the new site dragged on, the old building suffered from overcrowding and increasing neglect during its last years.


In January of 1955, a new library opened at 800 Vine Street, revered for its contemporary design. The old building was sold to Leyman Corp for just under the equivalent of $100,000 today, and by June that year, this magnificent library was lost forever. The three busts that once guarded the main entrance were the only original features of the building that were saved and placed in the new library’s garden.

I’m not sure if I was looking for an answer that would convince me there was a real reason this building had to be destroyed. Does it all just come down to a change in taste between generations and the probability that we have more of a romance with the past than they did?



John Fleischman, author of Free & Public, who traced the library’s history puts it quite simply:

Quote: “Yet when the doors closed forever … and wise heads declared that Old Main would never be missed, they were wrong.”

Because here we are, wishing we had somewhere like this to let our imaginations run wild.

It was running out of space but it seems it fell in the end to the typical "We'd rather tear it down and build something new than maintain it."  


Sad.