The Central Library is the main branch of the

Somerville, Massachusetts Somerville ( ) is a city located directly to the northwest of Boston, and north of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the city had a total population of 81, ...

, public library system. It is an architecturally distinguished

Renaissance Revival Renaissance Revival architecture (sometimes referred to as "Neo-Renaissance") is a group of 19th-century architectural revival styles which were neither Greek Revival nor Gothic Revival but which instead drew inspiration from a wide range of ...

brick building designed by

Edward Lippincott Tilton Edward Lippincott Tilton (October 19, 1861 – January 5, 1933) was an American architect, with a practice in New York City, where he was born. He specialized in the design of libraries, completing about one hundred in the U.S. and Canada, incl ...

and was built in 1914 with funding assistance from philanthropist

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie ( , ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the History of the iron and steel industry in the United States, American steel industry in the late ...

. The building was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1989.

Services

The library is a member of the

Minuteman Library Network Founded first as a cooperative, the Minuteman Library Network (MLN) is today a Library consortium, consortium of over 40+ public or academic library, academic libraries. The network consists of an aggregate collection of over sum 6 million items a ...

and has a lending collection of books, CDs, and video media. It also provides access to a number of online databases, either in-branch or through the Internet, to city residents. It runs a variety of programs for adults, children, and immigrants, and has a conference room and other facilities available for community use.

Architecture and history

Somerville's Central Library is located at the eastern end of Central Hill, a cluster of civic buildings that includes the city's high school and

City Hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city o ...

. It is located at the northwest corner of Highland Avenue and Walnut Street, on a parcel that first contained the city's first fire station. Noted library architect

designed the two story

building, which was completed in 1914. The yellow brick building is topped by a truncated

hip roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downward to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope, with variants including Tented roof, tented roofs and others. Thus, a hipped roof has no gables or other ve ...

made of green tile. The second story has nine

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

of high round-arched windows. The building is trimmed with limestone and terra cotta panels, and its entry is sheltered by a columned porch topped by an elaborate terra cotta shield. The city's first library, also a Romanesque structure, was built on the west side of Central Hill, near City Hill, and was designed by George F. Loring. The present building was funded in part by a grant from philanthropist

Gallery

References

External links

Somerville Public Library web site
{{authority control Library buildings completed in 1914 Libraries on the National Register of Historic Places in Massachusetts Edward Lippincott Tilton buildings Buildings and structures in Somerville, Massachusetts Libraries in Middlesex County, Massachusetts Public libraries in Massachusetts Carnegie libraries in Massachusetts National Register of Historic Places in Somerville, Massachusetts Education in Somerville, Massachusetts

Services

Architecture and history

Gallery

See also

References

External links