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The Greene Library:
Restoring Life to an Oakland Landmark
Originally appeared in the 10/96 issue of 'Off
the Shelf'
The opening of
AAMLO in its
new home marks the culmination of a $11.2 million project to renovate and
seismically retrofit the building, which was severely damaged in the Loma Prieta
Earthquake, and to return it as a treasured city facility for public use and
education.
Next door to the First Unitarian Church on 14th Street below MLK
Jr. Way sits the Charles S. Greene Library, so named after the Oakland Public
Library director responsible for this former main library's construction between
December, 1899 and June, 1902.
Standing several stories high, this unreinforced masonry
building, damaged during the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989, is covered with
public notices, has grounds overrun by a neglected garden. Fuchsias and
dandelions compete with crab grass and trash, while naked flag poles stand at
attention near the curb. The names Homer - Dante - Shakespeare - Milton - Lowell
- Froebel, the subject headings Discourse - History - Science - Philosophy -
Ethics - Prose - Literature - Poetry, and the words Oakland Free Library, trim
the upper and lower frieze between tall windows and welcoming doors now boarded
up and marked with foreboding "No Trespassing" signs.
Pedestrians walking by and commuters catching city buses are
oblivious to the history and magnificent architectural and artistic delights
that lie behind such an unkempt facade. How humble this California State
Historical Monument, a Carnegie Library no less, has become, over the last
twenty years.
The Greene Library, the former Main Library, is a distinguished
work in the American Beaux-Arts style, probably the "only surviving masonry
example of pure Italian Renaissance architecture." The interior design features
murals of San Francisco artist Marion Holden (later Mrs. Pope) on the main
staircase and by the prominent California artist, Arthur Mathews, on the east
wall of the upstairs delivery room. The murals are titled "Child Learning To
Read at the Mother's Knee," "Man Sowing the Grain," "The Family with the Loaf of
Bread," and in the reference room, "Peace and War."
The circulation counter and lobby of the
Greene Library
The artist Mathews arrived in Oakland with his family in 1866
and watched his father, architect Julius Matthews, help build a new city on the
east side of the Bay. Andrew F. Carnegie, the library benefactor, was quite
pleased with how he had spent his money. He remarked that the artistry of the
library interior created "...one of the finest library (he's) seen."
The new main library was inadequate to meet Oakland's needs
within just a decade of its opening. It wasn't until 1951 that the current Main
Library at 14th and Oak was completed and opened to the public. The Greene
Library, as it has been called since then after noted Oakland Public Library
director Charles S. Greene, became a branch library, and maintained a newspaper
collection. The Library shared space with City program offices until 1974. In
1989 the fateful earthquake closed the library for good.
Now there is a move to reopen the Charles S. Greene library as
the site of the African American Museum and Library at Oakland, now housed in the Golden
Gate Branch library. The California State Library has granted the library system
$4 million dollars, to be matched by the City of Oakland, to retrofit,
refurbish, and reopen this magnificent structure. If Measure I passes this
November, $5 million dollars in matching funds will be provided to return the
Greene Library to active use. So vote "Yes" on Measure I.
Quotes: Steve Lavoie's "The Art of The Library," 4/17/94 Oakland
Tribune; and pg. 8 of the narrative supporting landmark designation, all
courtesy of the
Oakland History Room.
(I remember thinking how wonderful it must have felt to study,
read, and browse in such beautiful surroundings when I toured the Greene Library
a few years ago.)
-- Wanda Sabir
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