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Bull Street Public Library (Savannah Public Library)

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1915–1916, Hyman W. Witcover; 1935 addition; 1995–2000 addition and restoration, Cogdell and Mendrala Architects. 2002 Bull St.

This library, the centerpiece of what was then the preeminent white neighborhood in Savannah, received $75,000 from the Carnegie Foundation, five times the amount that was previously given to the black Carnegie Library (10.24). The two-story masonry building includes a full-height entrance porch with Ionic columns, a wide frieze carved with the words “Savannah Public Library,” a stepped parapet wall with an inspirational inscription quoting John Ruskin, and tripled windows with transoms. A sense of empowerment through knowledge is evoked by the inscription—“Make Books Thy Comrades”—carved into the lintel of the door. The WPA funds for the 1935 addition included a Robin Hood mural by local artists William and Martina Hoffman in the children’s room (now an auditorium) inside the original building as well. One block of W. 36th Street was removed to make space for the library’s expansion, which opened in 2000. The postmodernist addition evokes its predecessor in scale and its split-stone marble cladding, but sits back from the main building.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Robin B. Williams with David Gobel, Patrick Haughey, Daves Rossell, and Karl Schuler
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Citation

Robin B. Williams with David Gobel, Patrick Haughey, Daves Rossell, and Karl Schuler, "Bull Street Public Library (Savannah Public Library)", [Savannah, Georgia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/GA-02-12.3.

Print Source

Buildings of Savannah, Robin B. Williams. With David Gobel, Patrick Haughey, Daves Rossell, and Karl Schuler. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016, 208-208.

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