Hide Article Text (OCR)
Fire chars library's rare collectionsLOS ANGELES (AP) — A blaze that roared through the city’s 60-year-old Central library, the third-largest in the nation, may have destroyed thousands of valuable books including a 1695 Shakespeare portfolio. officials say.More than 2 million books, periodicals, photographs, maps, patents, manuscripts and exhibits were housed in the library, whose collection was estimated four years ago at worth $69 million, director Betty Gay said.Skid Row denizens from a nearby shelter joined library workers to grab charred and water-soaked books after the fire began Tuesday morning in the landmark building’s central book stacks.The blaze, cause unknown, burned for 7% hours before it was extinguished.Thirty-five of the 250 firefighters who fought the blaze were injured, and 19 required hospitalization. About #0 library patrons and employees were evacuated from thebuilding, but none was reported injured.Library spokesman Bob Reagan said a foil evaluation of damage would have to wait, “but the potential is that one of the great libraries of the free world has been seriously damaged.”The fate of such rare works as the Shakespeare portfolio and a first-edition copy of James Joyce’s “Ulysses” was unknown after library officials toured the dark and smoky building Tuesday night.“We have lost the U.S. patent collection,” Ms. Gay said. “It’s the largest in the Western United States. It was a very heavily used area of the library. ”Tens of thousands of volumes in the fiction and periodical stack sections also were damaged, but “the Fire Department did a tremendous job of salvaging more than we thought possible,” Ms. Gay said.Fire Chief Donald Manning said it was “very treacherous — the worst fire to contain I’ve seen in my 31 years” as a firefighter.The blaze scorched the concrete building’s exterior but apparently left it intact. Inside, however, two of the three floors partially collapsed and were littered with a jumble of burned furniture, shelving, fixtures, woodwork and the remains of books.The literary rescue effort was aided by 24 residents of the San Julian Shelter and Transition House, who volunteered to help in retrieving the damaged books.Romaine Ahlstrom, the library’s head of circulation development, said workers have three days to try to save the books or they’ll be lost to mold.Books that appear salvageable will be separated from those damaged beyond repair and will be shipped to warehouses for frozen storage to prevent mold, Ms. Ahlstrom said. They will then be freeze-dried to remove moisture.Mayor Tom Bradley, who cut short a trip to San Diego to survey the damage, said earlier that the Getty Museum and the University of California at Berkeley already had offered to restore damaged books.Bradley called the fire “a real tragedy. This magnificent building is something we have tried to save and bring up to new standards.”The library, topped by a blue-and-gold tiled mosiac pyramid, wasscheduled to undergo a $119 million renovation that would have emptied it of its valuable collection by July.The library, designed by architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue and dedicated July 15, 1926, was declared a historic cultural monument by the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Board in 1967.It is also on the National Register of Historic Places.
Newspaper Details
Indiana Gazette
Indiana, Pennsylvania, US
Wed, Apr 30, 1986
Page 24
Full Page
Clipped by
Julieta C.
NA, 01 Sep 2021
Other Publications Near Indiana, Pennsylvania
Indiana Democrat
Indiana Weekly Progress
Indiana Progress
Indiana Messenger
Indiana Evening Gazette
