Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny

Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
City of Pittsburgh Historic Structure
Pittsburgh Landmark — PHLF
Location	Allegheny Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Coordinates
Area	1 acre (0.40 ha)
Built	1886–90
Architect	Smithmeyer & Pelz
Architectural style	Romanesque Revival, Richardsonian Romanesque
NRHP Reference #	74001736
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	November 1, 1974
Designated CPHS	March 15, 1974
Designated PHLF	1970

The Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny is situated in the Allegheny Center neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Donated to the public by entrepreneur Andrew Carnegie, it was built from 1886 to 1890 on a design by John L. Smithmeyer and Paul J. Pelz.

It was commissioned in 1886, the first Carnegie library to be commissioned in the United States. Yet it did not open until 1890 thus making it the second library to open. The first one to open being the Carnegie Free Library of Braddock, built for steel-workers in Braddock, 9 miles up the Monongahela River from Pittsburgh.

The building also features the first Carnegie Music Hall in the United States. The Music Hall at the Braddock Library would not open until an 1893 expansion of that structure.

The running costs were met from local taxes – unlike the Carnegie Library in Braddock, which received an endowment from Carnegie. After a mid-2000s lightning strike, the library was moved to a new building a few blocks north on Federal Street. The New Hazlett Theater is now the primary tenant. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

Gallery

• Carnegie Library Allegheny ReadingRoom 1900.jpg

  Reading Room, ca. 1900

• Carnegie Library Allegheny 1900.jpg

  Women's Reading Room, ca. 1900

• Carnegie Library Allegheny.jpg

  Library entrance

• Carnegie Hall Allegheny.jpg

  Carnegie Hall entrance (now New Hazlett Theater)

• Anderson Monument Allegheny 2013.jpg

  Monument to Colonel James Anderson, who inspired Carnegie to donate free libraries