New Haven Free Public Library - Ives Main Library

The New Haven Free Public Library sits on the corner of Elm and Temple Streets. Visitors immediately recognize its monumental architectural significance, even before they look above the four columns surrounding the door and see, engraved into the marble, “Free Public Library.” Two sets of stairs, in between two small yards surrounded by balustrade, lead visitors to the façade of the brick building, constructed in the colonial revival style between 1908 and 1911. For over 100 years now, the building has served a singular purpose: providing New Haven residents access to free books and resources. Its purpose was utilitarian, but its monumentality stemmed from the City Beautiful movement and New Haven’s Civic Improvement Committee, which sought to “improve the civic image of the city,” according to Preston Maynard of the New Haven Preservation Trust. The library previously existed in buildings on Chapel Street and Church Street, but it has remained in this location on Elm Street since Mary Ives donated $300,000 to the city to construct a fireproof library. In 1987, the city began a $14.5 million renovation project that expanded the building by 65,000 square feet, to 103,000 square feet. The renovation restored the building and maintained its style, while modernizing the building itself. According to the library’s description, “The new construction was designed to integrate with and complement the old, while, at the same time, proclaiming its own contemporary identity.”

1906-1968, City of New Haven

1968-1984, State of Connecticut

1984-present, City of New Haven

Before this lot on Elm Street was purchased in 1906, no building existed in the exact location of the library. An 1888 map shows that the lot on which the library was later built was owned by T.R. Trowbridge at the time, although it is unknown if he owned the land up to its purchase by the city in 1906. 

After the City of New Haven purchased this lot on Elm Street in 1906, it remained in the city’s hands for most of its history. In 1968, the city sold the building to the State of Connecticut for $800,000, in keeping with the guidance of the city’s Renewal Program for a new central library building. (At this point, the NHFPL system had several other branches.) During this time, the building’s operations did not change; it remained the main branch of the NHFPL. But in 1984, the city purchased the building back for the same price, opting for a renovation and expansion at the Elm Street site over relocation. In 1987, the city began a $14.5 million renovation and expansion, and the renovated building was opened in 1990. The building was expanded by 65,000 square feet, to 103,000 square feet. In its larger space, the Ives Main Library plays the same role it did over 100 years ago when it opened: giving all New Haven residents “full and unlimited access to information and knowledge,” according to its mission statement. 

The NHFPL is located on the northeast corner of the New Haven Green, at the corner of Elm and Temple Streets. The only buildings on the Green are three churches. But all around the library there is high building density, with Yale buildings, buildings offering community services, and restaurants. The library sits next to the New Haven Superior Court, which was also built, according to its 1981 description by the Connecticut Historical Commission’s Historical Resources Inventory, as “part of an overall scheme to improve the civic image of the city.”

The NHFPL plays a monumental role on the Green, anchoring its many different milieu. It has been in the same location for over 100 years, and its continued existence stands in stark contrast to modern retail chains like Chipotle and Starbucks, which are located directly across the Green from the library. To the west of it sit several Yale buildings, including the Yale University Press and the Yale Visitors Center. The library almost signals the start of the “rest” of New Haven, marking the point at which the city stops being a university town and starts offering resources to its residents. 

A 1981 report for the Historic Resources Inventory of the Connecticut Historical Commission describes the NHFPL in great detail. Constructed from 1908-1911 in the colonial revival style as part of the City Beautiful movement, the library is a monumental building and a defining feature of downtown New Haven. The three-story masonry building sits on a raised foundation with an attached wing in the rear. The Elm Street façade features a long stylobate with two sets of stairs rising to a center pavilion.

The front pavilion is surrounded on both sides by small yards, which are “terraced and have balustrade surrounding the parcel.” The center window, above the entrance, has a cornice head. The windows on the side bays have a molded surround. The Elm Street façade also has four engaged columns that support “an entablature with modillion cornice.” The windows are “symmetrical between the columns.” The entry is “recessed in a pedimented surround with paneled reveal.” Single bays, one per side, border the pavilion. The bays have “tall, arched window openings” on the first floor, “with multi-paned sash.” The bays have “molded surround with cut-stone keystone and impost blocks.”

The corners of the buildings on the Elm Street façade have “paired pilasters rising to the entablature and balustrade” mentioned earlier. “A large watertable defines the jointure of upper stories to the foundation,” and both sides of the building (east and west) are five bays wide. Each bay has a “center pavilion which projects only slightly from the main building,” and that pavilion “is framed by paired pilasters.” The windows are symmetrical and the fenestration “consists of tall arched window openings with multi-paned sash and marble keystone and impost block.” The windows also have a “table-like sill supported by small consoles.” The windows on the second story are smaller, with a 15x15 sash with a “shouldered architrave.”

At the time the report was made, there was a sunken parking lot in the rear yard. But a renovation and expansion was completed in 1990, which greatly expanded the size of the library by 65,000 square feet, to 103,000 square feet. The addition was added in the rear of the building, made to look like part of the original structure, with the same style of bays and windows added. One would not be able to tell an expansion occurred from the outside, although it is quite clear from the interior. The point at which the reference desk is today located marks the start of the expanded area. There are areas of the original exterior wall that are now part of the interior, and today they sit next to stacks of books.

Still, the entrance to the library remains the same. Visitors enter from Elm Street to “a vestibule and stairhall.” “Curvilinear staircases and walls” mark the two-story building (actually three plus a basement, but two are below street level). Visitors walk through the vestibule to a large lobby and circulation room, which is “a monumental space, two-stories in height, rising to a cove ceiling with stain-glass skylight.” Today, the library feels immense, but it was much more compact before its expansion. What is today the local history room, to the left off the main lobby, used to be the fiction section. The downstairs floor used to house the children’s books, and today it is used as a program room. Today, after walking past the gray carpet that marks the end of the old library, visitors encounter a reference desk, tables for working and tables with computers, and fiction stacks.