The Rundel Memorial Building is a historic

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...

building located at

Rochester Rochester may refer to: Places Australia * Rochester, Victoria Canada * Rochester, Alberta United Kingdom *Rochester, Kent ** City of Rochester-upon-Medway (1982–1998), district council area ** History of Rochester, Kent ** HM Prison ...

Monroe County, New York Monroe County is a county in the Finger Lakes region of the State of New York. The county is along Lake Ontario's southern shore. At the 2020 census, Monroe County's population was 759,443, an increase since the 2010 census. Its county seat ...

. It is the original downtown site of the Rochester Public Library, and along with the Bausch & Lomb Library Building directly across the street, serves as the Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County. It is framed in reinforced concrete and faced in smooth Indiana

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...

. It consists of three main floors, a mezzanine, two underground levels, a catwalk level above the river, and a penthouse area for equipment. It was constructed between 1934 and 1936, and represents an integration of Beaux-Arts planning and massing with

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

detailing and stylization. The building is sited along the east side of the

Genesee River The Genesee River is a tributary of Lake Ontario flowing northward through the Twin Tiers of Pennsylvania and New York in the United States. The river provided the original power for the Rochester area's 19th century mills and still provides h ...

directly above the Johnson and Seymour millrace and Rochester Subway. The building was built in part with monies from the estate of Morton W. Rundel and with a grant from the

Public Works Administration The Public Works Administration (PWA), part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. It was created by the National Industrial Reco ...

. ''See also:'' It is a work of prominent Rochester architectural firm

Gordon & Kaelber Gordon & Kaelber was an architectural firm of Rochester, New York, extant from 1918 to 1932. The partners included Edwin S. Gordon, who died in 1932,''Architectural Forum'' 1932: 52. and William G. Kaelber. The firm was preceded by Gordon & Madden ...

It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

in 1985.

References

External links

Library buildings completed in 1932 Educational buildings in Rochester, New York Libraries on the National Register of Historic Places in New York (state) Beaux-Arts architecture in New York (state) Art Deco architecture in Rochester, New York National Register of Historic Places in Rochester, New York {{MonroeCountyNY-NRHP-stub