Massachusetts
Historical Commission Record for The Forest
Park Library
FORM B - BUILDING
Assessor’s
Number: 1235 USGS Quad: Springfield Form Number: SPR.3770
Massachusetts
Historical Commission
State Archives
Building
220 Morrissey
Boulevard Boston,
Massachusetts 02125
Town Springfield
Place (neighborhood or village): Forest Park
Address: 300 Belmont Avenue
Historic Name: Forest
Park Branch Library
Present: library
Original: library
Construction: 1908-09
Annual reports, City Library Association
Form: Beaux Arts
Architect/Builder: Kirkham & Parlett
Material: brick
Trim: brick
Outbuildings/Secondary Structures:
Major Alteration (with dates): Addition, 1925-26
Condition: good
Moved: No
Acreage: less than one acre
Setting: The library presides over a
triangular corner lot where two the iunction of two broad avenues, its 45-angle
siting heightening its prominence in this commercial, residential and
institutional area.
Recorded by Marla Miller/Bonnie Parsons
Organization
Pioneer Valley
Planning Commission
Date (month/year) Sept 1999
BUILDING FORM
ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION see continuation sheet
Describe architectural features. Evaluate the
characteristics of this building in terms of other buildings within
, the communitv.
This version of the Beaux Arts style in Springfield
is rich in detail. The material of the exterior is a light gray vitrified brick
trimmed in white terra cotta with a tooled surface. A projecting porch with
large columns - accessed by a flight of dressed Monson granite -- provides the
entrance to this single-story structure on a raised basement. Stone coursing
and thick dentils encircle the building, interrupted by two
large cartouche flanking the entrance, each displaying open books. Three
panels with swag motifs are set into the parapet. An 11' 3" table bronze
tablet over the entrance reads "Forest Park Branch Library," and
thanks the donors, Andrew Carnegie and the residents of Forest
Park; it constructed and erected by the W.R. Cook
Granite Co.. This was "something new of its kind
in the this city [and] one of the largest ever used
over the entrance of a public building in Springfield."
Corners of both the building and the projecting
portico, as well as window surrounds capped with keystones, are treated with
quoins. Indeed, the amount of ornament so predominates that the brick appears
almost as infill. The ornamentation of the original seven-by-three block is
carried through on a large addition to the rear that gives the three-by-eleven
bay present building an H-shaped footprint. The library's location, angled on a
triangular lot at the busy intersection of Oakland
and Belmont Streets, together with its siting, on a slight rise, enhances its
presence within the surrounding commercial and residential districts.
HISTORICAL
NARRATIVE see continuation sheet
Discuss the history of the building. Explain its
associations with local (or state) history. Include uses of the building, and
the role(s) the owners/occupants played within the community.
The branch
library system played a significant role in suburban neighborhood development
in early twentiethcentury America,
serving as community centers as well as sources of neighborhood identity and
pride. In Springfield, the first
two neighborhoods to receive branch libraries were Indian Orchard, in 1909, and
Forest Park later that same year.
The concept of a Forest Park Branch Library was begun by the Reverend H.E.
Thayer, pastor of Park Memorial
Church, and church member Nellie
Dodge. The two brought books from the City Library and established a local
circulating collection. In 1908, Andrew Carnegie provided $50,000 for three
library buildings: one for Indian Orchard, one for Forest
Park and one for the North End. Carnegie required that a citizen subscription
for land be matched to his gift. As Forest Park
and Indian Orchard had both outgrown their "provisional quarters" (Forest
Park's collection had been housed at the Park
Memorial Baptist
Church) they were the obvious
beneficiaries of this largesse. Sites were purchased and presented to the City
Library Association through a committee of citizens who obtained subscription
from more than five hundred people in the neighborhood of Forest
Park. In 1909, both libraries opened. The Forest
Park library was voted an official branch by the
Trustees of the Springfield City Library Association, the owner and governing
body then and to this day. There were many "circulation" stations
like Forest Park Memorial
Church. These were never considered
branches. The 82 x 52' Forest Park
branch had a 13,000 volume capacity and seating for ninety readers. In a
standard Carnegie plan, the building had a centralized "delivery
room," a reading room, a children's room, and library offices.
Architects of the Forest Park Branch Library were Guy Kirkham
and Edwin Parlett. The firm of Kirkham and Parlett was organized in 1904, when
Guy Kirkham (1864-1935), who had been practicing in Springfield
for twelve years, teamed up with Edwin Parlett (1864-1931), who had himself
been working in the city for a decade. Born in Springfield,
Guy Kirkham (whose grandfather was Charles Merriam, of Merriam-Webster)
attended St. Paul's school in Concord
NH, and received his degree in architecture
from MIT in 1887. After working in Minnesota
(under Cass Gilbert, designer of the Minnesota
state capitol) and New York
**********
INVENTORY FORM CONTINUATION SHEET
Community Property Address: 300
Belmont Avenue
Massachusetts
Historical Commission
State Archives
Building
220 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, Massachusetts 02125
Edwin Parlett
was born in Norfolk, VA,
and found his early training with New York
architect Bruce Price. About 1890, Price commissioned Parlett to come to Springfield
and supervise construction of the D.B. Wesson home on Maple
Street, later the Colony Club. Parlett remained,
opening a practice that would design, among other things, the Edwin C. Carter
home and the Carr Building
on the corner of Harrison and Market Streets. After 1904, the firm of Kirkham
and Parlett designed the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company home
office building (described in The American Architect),
the Forbes & Wallace store, the William and Howard Street schools,
the Smith & Wesson offices, and other public buildings as well as numerous
private residences and summer homes. The firm of Kirkland
and Parlett also designed public libraries in Chicopee
and Hadley, and, in 1908, added a third library to that list, in Forest
Park.
Located almost across the street from one of the city's
largest schools, early on the Forest Park Branch Library also benefited from
its proximity to the city's trolley lines. When the new building opened,
circulation jumped from 25, 953 to 237,000, prompting librarians to remark that
"this is a larger circulation than is enjoyed by any other similar library
in New England and probably in the country." (Vol. 8, p. 67). In 1926, subscribers funded a badly-needed
addition, designed by Samuel M. Green, that tripled
the size of the library. Today, the library is one of eight branch libraries
serving Springfield residents,
which together account for some seventy-five percent of the city library
system's total circulation. While the main library has come to offer
centralized reference services and specialized collections, Springfield's
branch libraries provide neighborhood residents with access to popular and
current materials, with special emphasis on programming for children.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
and/or REFERENCES El see continuation
sheet
Annual
Report of the City Library Association of Springfield, 1908, pp. 12-13, 15; 1909, pp. 15, 19, 25; 1926, pp.5,
11
Winthrop
Holt Chenery, "The Springfield City Library," (Thesis, New York State
Library School, 1920) Forest Park Branch Library, Vol. 8, pp. 67, 118; and Vol.
9, pp. 28, 32, and 51.
Guy
Kirkham, From One Age On
To Another: Distillations for Home Consumption," (Springfield,
1934) , The Best Security (Springfield, 1916)
Michael Konig and Martin Kaufman, eds., Springfield, 1636-1986 (Springfield, 1987), 221. "Looking Backward Fifty Years Ago," Springfield Daily
News, 17 Feb 1959
Springfield Daily
Republican, 18 January 1908 and 12 August, 1959
Springfield Scrapbooks, Vol.
9, p. 132-3; Vol. 14, p. 29; 16, pp. 115 & 167, and 20, p. 67.
Recommended for listing in the National Register of Historic
Places.