Newark Public Library - Main Branch (Newark, New Jersey)

 library, wifi hotspot, public institution, interesting place, Beaux-Arts (architecture)

Main branch of the Newark Public Library which was designed c. 1901 by Rankin & Kellogg of Philadelphia in the Italian Renaissance style. The monumental oak–paneled reading room, which extended along the front of the building, emulated the Bates reading room at the Boston Public Library. A bronze relief entitled "Wisdom Teaching the Children of Men" over the front entryway of the Library, was sculpted by Newarker John Flanagan in 1903.

A two–story, 15,000 square foot addition was designed by Ely & Ely in 1922 which doubled the size of the children’s room on the first floor. They would return in 1931 to build another additon under the firm of Wilson & Ely.

In 1927, the Friends of the Library commissioned the artist Robert Hales Ives Gammell, to paint a mural. The mythological themed triptych, The Fountain of Knowledge, was unveiled on the east wall of the second floor and depicts a group of sages, the Fountain of Knowledge, and the Nine Muses. The muses, daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, are accompanied by Apollo and carry knowledge to the four corners of the world. A likeness of John Cotton Dana, who served as the institution’s librarian and influential second director until his death in 1929, can be discerned in the far left corner.

npl.org
npl.org/about-the-library/history/
joshdorn1.smugmug.com/LINCOLN/Ep-105/Library/2nd-Fl-Ref...