Thanks, Obama, but city is already home to many historic libraries

Obama library? Great, but there are historic libraries in the city already, not to be taken for granted.

How nice: We are getting a new library.

Where? What? Who knows, and there are lots of other questions to be answered, but last week came the news that Barack Obama's presidential library and museum will open here in … well, that's another question, isn't it?

All of the hoopla and chest-thumping civic chauvinism that surrounded this announcement of the forthcoming announcement of a precise location, architect and other details overshadowed the fact that we already have a lot of libraries here, some 80 of them, free and open to the public.

Only a few blocks from the Obamas' Kenwood home — anybody who thinks this will be their primary residence after leaving the White House, raise your hand — is the Blackstone Library at 4904 S. Lake Park Ave. It is the city's first branch library and the oldest. It was built in 1904 with money donated by Isabella Norton Blackstone in honor of her late husband, Timothy Beach Blackstone, a railroad executive and first president of the Union Stockyards.

The impressive building is the work of architect Solon S. Beman, whose architectural work also stands in Pullman, the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Avenue, and a few Hyde Park homes, and was once visible at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893.

It is inspired by the Erechtheum, a temple on the Acropolis in Athens. There are solid bronze doors and a stunning central rotunda supported by eight marble columns and featuring four large murals by O.D. Grover depicting "Literature," "Science," "Art" and "Labor." There is a main reading room whose high ceiling features a leaded-glass skylight.

There's another library not far away from the Obamas' home. It is the George Cleveland Hall branch at 4801 S. Michigan Ave.; 12,000-some square feet once visited by such great writers as Richard Wright, Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks. They did research and writing here. They spoke at book review sessions and lectured here.

The neighborhood is Bronzeville, and in the 1920s it was a vibrant area full of shops and clubs and dreams. But it lacked the same thing that every black neighborhood in the city lacked, a library. Prominent black physician George Cleveland Hall convinced philanthropist Julius Rosenwald of the need for a library there, and Rosenwald, who headed Sears, Roebuck and Co., bought the land and gave it to the city. The attendant publicity forced the library board to fund construction of the library.

Built of Indiana limestone in the Italian Renaissance style, it features an octagonal rotunda with terrazzo tile, brass ornaments and dark English oak. It opened on Jan. 18, 1932, and its first head librarian was also the city's first black librarian, Vivian G. Harsh.

At Hall, Harsh began to amass the Special Negro Collection: books, pamphlets, newspaper clippings, photos and whatever else she could get her hands on. Andrew J. Kolar, then president of the city library board of directors, argued with dispiriting and sad forcefulness that the books Harsh "was installing in the new Hall branch were likely to cause a race riot."

Libraries dot the city: the Austin branch, 5615 W. Race St., was built in 1929 and is a place of lovely architectural touches, a large auditorium and a broad African-American collection; the Sherman Park Branch, 5440 S. Racine Ave., built as a Works Progress Administration project in 1937 and a great stop before visiting one of the city's finest parks, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, right across the street; the Rudy Lozano Branch, 1805 S. Loomis St., named in honor of the union organizer and community activist who was assassinated in 1983 at age 32, with the largest Spanish-language collection in the city library system; and the Sulzer Regional Library, 4455 N. Lincoln Ave., opened in 1985 and a place whose patrons speak more than 85 languages.

The suburbs, too, are filled with active and essential libraries. Live there? Find yours.

Though many of us now inhabit an e-book/Google/Netflix/iPod/tablet world, for an incalculable number of people libraries provide not only books, movies, music and other entertainments they could otherwise not afford, but also places of sanctuary, peace and enlightenment. Public libraries exist for all, but primarily serve those who cannot afford to buy books or computers.

The Obama Library will be a palace focused on politics and personality, joining a large crowd of less dramatic and ballyhooed palaces that focus on people and possibilities.

"After Hours With Rick Kogan" airs 9-11 p.m. Sundays on WGN-AM 720.

rkogan@tribpub.com

Twitter @rickkogan

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