Added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 19, 1987

There is no shortage of war memorials to visit in Los Angeles. This Memorial Day, I opted to visit a different kind of war memorial: a historic library dedicated to the memory of fallen soldiers, with a moving story behind it. But first, I need to tell you about the building across the street. 

Los Angeles High School was the first high school in the city. In 1917, it moved to its third and final location at the intersection of W. Olympic and S. Rimpau, a big beautiful gothic revival building. The designers were John C. Austin & Frederick Ashley, the same firm that would give us the Griffith Observatory 18 years later. 

Think about what it must have been like to start at a brand new campus in fall of 1917, just a few months after America entered World War I, knowing full well that some of your older classmates, and maybe your older brother, were shipping off to Europe, and you might never see them again. 

Fast forward to 1923. The students and alumni of Los Angeles High School bought a plot of land right across from the school, on the north side of Olympic Boulevard, and deeded it to the city to create a memorial park honoring the 20 LA High alumni who died in WWI. In 1929, the city’s Park Board granted permission to the Library Board to build the LA Public Library’s 49th branch at the north end of the park. 

The LAPL brought back Austin & Ashley to the block at considerable expense – the structure cost $47,621 to erect, fine oak furnishings included. For their money, they got an elegant L-shaped gothic building with elements of English tudor about it. With its multi-hued clinker brick walls and baroque cast-stone frames around the front door and main windows, the style meshed well with Austin & Ashley’s LA High School building across the street. It was also reminiscent of the old-world building styles of western Europe, where over 116,000 Americans perished in WWI. 

One of the most distinctive parts of the building is a large stained glass window on the south side of the adult reading room that lists the names of LA High School’s war dead. It was designed by the legendary Judson Studios in Highland Park, in heraldic style, typical of decorations in English manors of the Tudor period. A letter from Judson dated June 14, 1930 describes it in detail: 

The symbols and insignia are shown as decoration on the shields and are carried across the top row of windows representing the various divisions of the Army, Navy, Marines, Engineers and Aviation. 

“The second row of shields carry the national coat of arms; the arms of the State of California; the City of Los Angeles; and the Los Angeles High School. There is depicted the towers of the old and the New High School Buildings. The school motto is spread across the bottom of this row: ‘Obedience to Law. Respect for others. Mastery of Self. Joy of Service; these constitute Life.’ …

“Across the base of the window is the inscription ‘Dedicated to the Alumni of the Los Angeles High School who died in the World War. 1914-1918. May the sacrifice of these lives contribute to the establishment of peace among nations.’

-Judson Studios, June 14, 1930

An unattributed (but very detailed!) history of the Memorial Branch Library from ca. 1936 tells the story that the Library Board was keen to not christen the branch after an important figure from California history, as it had for a number of other branches (e.g. Felipe de Neve Branch, John C. Fremont Branch, Helen Hunt Jackson Branch). The Library Board proposed “Ralph Waldo Emerson Branch,” the LA High School leadership objected, and eventually everyone agreed to name it after the surrounding Memorial Park instead.

The Memorial Branch Library opened on April 29, 1930, with speeches, music from the LA High School orchestra and glee club, and of course a performance of “Taps” and a “Star Spangled Banner” singalong. The relatives of the 20 men memorialized in the window were in attendance. The following day, Doctor Doolittle creator Hugh Lofting gave a talk for the local kiddos. 

In the early years, the relationship between the Memorial Branch and LA High School was so close that it was sometimes confused for a school library. The school’s honor society, the Pericleans, used the Memorial Branch as a de facto study hall; apparently the hygiene department even used the library’s clubroom as a classroom a few days a week. 

In the 1930s the community surrounding the Memorial Branch Library was largely upper-middle-class and Jewish: “not the poor, omnivorous reading type but the wealthier, sophisticated Jewish people,” as the unattributed history puts it in vaguely racist fashion. “There is no foreign speaking community, and very few books in other languages are called for.”

A lot had changed by the time writer Carol Easton, who grew up in the area, penned a feature about the Memorial Library for Westways magazine in 1977. By then circulation and library card holders decreased, and working class Blacks, Asians and Spanish speakers had moved into apartment buildings that were replacing many of the single-family houses in the neighborhood. The library staff did their best to keep up with the changing community, acquiring books and periodicals in foreign languages, and bulking up their resources for folks seeking jobs.

Also in the ‘70s, the Sylmar earthquake severely damaged Austin & Ashley’s LA High School building across the street. It was demolished in 1971, and replaced with the faceless whatever that’s there currently.

A few years after the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake, Memorial Branch underwent its own seismic retrofitting and restoration by Miralles & Associates, to make sure it didn’t meet the same fate as LA High School. In the early ‘90s the library operated out of a temporary location at 4801 Wilshire Boulevard. The original spot reopened to the public in 1996, with brand new stained glass installed at the end of each of the main book aisles. And who do you think provided the stained glass? That’s right – Judson Studios, the same firm that designed the original memorial window. 

Sources & Recommended Reading

+ “A Brief Memorial Branch Library History“ (LAPL.org)

+ Easton, Carol: “Library in the Park” (Westways, September 1977)

+ “History of the Memorial Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library” (author unknown, c. 1936)

+ Judson Studios: “Alumni Memorial Window.” (Letter from June 14, 1930 – via LAPL website)

+ “Los Angeles Memorial Library, CA” (JudsonStudios.com)

+ “Los Angeles Public Library Memorial Branch” (WWI Memorial Inventory Project)

+ Memorial Branch Library’s NRHP nomination form

+ Multiple Property Submission to the NRHP for LA Public Library Branches (1913-1930)