In January of this year, the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated this George Bruce Branch Library, at 520 West 125th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenue. It is the second incarnation of a library that was a product of the late 19th-century New York Free Circulating Library Movement which has evolved into the present-day New York Public Library system.
A Library for the Tenderloin
The first George Bruce branch library was established in 1887 some four miles farther south in the Tenderloin, a somewhat notorious area that preceded Times Square. According to the New York Times, philanthropist Catherine Wolfe Bruce had bestowed a $50,000 endowment for “the building and maintenance of a branch library in commemoration of her father”, a Scottish émigré and noted type-founder.
The George Bruce branch library was built at 226 West 42nd Street, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue. By 1913, it was regarded as one of the best-endowed facilities of its kind in the city. But in light of the recently built Fifth Avenue Public Library, its significance to the Times Square population that had grown up around it was quickly waning.
As plans were made to move the George Bruce branch farther west to Tenth Avenue and 40th Street, the proposition raised some curious objections. It was argued that relocating the venerable little library would constitute a deprivation to chorus girls from the many of the neighborhood rooming houses, as well as to students and local workers.
Nevertheless, the old George Bruce branch was sold. According to the Times, proceeds “paid for the new building and site in the Manhattanville district” where library facilities were lacking.
A New Library for Manhattanville
The present George Bruce Branch Library on West 125th Street was built by the firm of Carrère & Hastings (the same firm that had built the big new public library on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street). The new branch library opened on June 2, 1915, the thirty-second (out of forty-three) branch libraries on Manhattan island in the citywide public library system. A 1916 New York Public Library bulletin describes the building’s two stories and a basement. There was “the adult circulation department and the reading and reference rooms” on the first floor; and “the children’s room, with sections for both circulation and reading” on the second floor; and “an assembly room in the basement.”
The library bulletin also describes the “loan exhibitions” of some “paintings of marine scenes…by noted artist Frederick Judd Waugh.” It’s anyone's guess if Waugh’s "marine scenes" (which he was particularly famous for) were specific to the then animated Manhattanville docks that have recently been re-landscaped as the West Harlem Piers Park. The Times' reference to the work as “a series of panels” suggests that it was not a permanent mural, and the whereabouts of the artwork—whether at some time either retrieved or replaced—are now unknown.
A Building Facing the Past
But one of the most curious features of the George Bruce Branch Library is outside the building. With a eye on the roof line, a walk around to the back of the library suggests that the rear used to be the front, or was at least as important. The rear cornice is more ornate than the front, and rises more prominently to enclose four small dormers of an attic story.
Indeed, period maps reveal the library’s former location in the fork of Manhatttanville's old irregular street pattern. Its through-block footprint afforded the building two official addresses: 78-80 Manhattan Street (which in 1921 was changed to 520 West 125th Street) and 519-521 West 126th Street (which was changed to Moylan Place).
The latter street was reduced by housing development in the 1950s to a service passage. To its credit, it serves as a convenient shortcut down memory lane.
Sources:
The New York Times
Bulletin of the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, 1916.
Eric K. Washington - Eric K. Washington is the author of Manhattanville: Old Heart of West Harlem and contributed to the recent MTA-licensed guide book, New ...
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