Saint
James Hall and Buffalo's Library
By
Anne E. Conable
Manager,
Community
Engagement,
Buffalo
& Erie County Public Library
Buffalo
established
library services through the Young Men’s Association
beginning in 1836. This was a membership organization;
dues-paying members (white men, of course) were able to check
out books, many of which had been donated from the private
libraries of Buffalo’s wealthy citizens. The Young Men’s
Association(YMA) operated in several rented locations in
downtown Buffalo before 1864.
When
the highly unusual $40,000 bequest from Seth Grosvenor’s
estate was revealed in 1857, which required establishment of a
non-circulating library open to all,discussions began to
explore combining the new Grosvenor and YMA libraries but
agreement could not be reached. The YMA Library leadership,
which had in 1857agreed to add women as members, was by then
looking for new larger quarters that would accommodate not
only a rapidly growing book collection but also the fledgling
collections on fine arts, local history and scientific
discovery that had been started. The fear of fire was a
significant concern.
All
efforts were delayed by the advent of the Civil War.
In
1864, the YMA settled on purchasing for $112,500 St.
James Hall, an existing hotel building with a
well-used event hall on Eagle Street between Main and
Washington Streets (current site of M&T
Plaza). A public subscription campaign raised needed
funds in less than three months, and the YMA was able to move
in on January 10, 1865. And the move was fortuitous – the
YMA’s previous home in the American
Block (Main Place Mall location) burned to the ground
that January 25!
In
his opening address at St. James Hall, YMA leader Oliver
Steele called the building a “…grand concentration of all the
literary, art and scientific societies of the city, all with
ample room, and all in a position to cooperate with each
other.” The tenants in the building along with the YMA
included the new Grosvenor Library, Buffalo Historical
Society, Buffalo Society of Natural Sciences, the Fine Arts
Academy, the Young Men’s Christian Union,Buffalo’s Law
Library, Young Men’s Catholic Association, and the Erie County
Medical Society. All were charged a reasonable rent for a
period of time to payoff the YMA’s purchase with the promise
that they could stay indefinitely thereafter rent-free.
It
was in April 1865, as the country was still reeling
from the War, that the martyred President
Abraham
Lincoln lay in state at St.
James Hall on his last train ride to
burial in Illinois. An estimated 80,000-100,000 mourners paid
their last respects at his bier.
The
building provided principal income for the YMA -- $9,000 the
first year -- from stores on first floor and from St. James
Hall,which continued as the city’s primary lecture hall and
event space. During its early ownership, the YMA sponsored
lectures as a form of “civic education” by Julia Ward Howe,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Ward Beecher, Thomas Nast, and
other prominent national figures. As the YMA steadily gained
popularity,competition grew for its leadership roles, a mark
of prestige in the city.
Wise
leadership, public support and an entrepreneurial spirit meant
the YMA was free of debt
by 1878. But its leaders knew that the YMA would have
an even greater impact on the growing city through
reorganization and innovation. They chose Josephus Larned
(1836-1913) as the new Library Superintendent in 1877.
Larned,
a
former newspaper man, had worked alongside Mark
Twain at the Buffalo Express and unsuccessfully
run for office before serving as Buffalo’s Superintendent of
Education 1871-1876. The YMA Library’s collection had grown
significantly though the purchases were haphazard and the
catalog woefully out of date. Over the next two decades with
Larned at the helm, this daunting reorganization task
ultimately led to a greatly improved book collection,
reorganization and professionalization of library staff,
honorary library memberships for teachers and free ones for
children, more selective book purchasing, and the first
Children’s Room and Children’s book collection in an American
library. The YMA also became the first complete application of
the Dewey Decimal System in an American library thanks to
Larned’s friendship with library pioneer Melvil Dewey. Larned
later succeeded Dewey as President of the young American
Library Association.
It
was
under Larned’s proactive leadership that the YMA again began
considering anew larger library for the rapidly growing city.
Courthouse
Square, now Lafayette
Square, was deemed the best, most central location for a
new library, where the old Courthouse had been, and a design
competition for the new building took place in 1884, won
ultimately by architect Cyrus
Eidlitz. In tandem with the building of the new library,
the YMA took on a new identity – the Buffalo Library.
The Library vacated St. James Hall in late 1886, moving into
its magnificent new building with its cultural partners. The
formal opening of the new Library was February 7, 1887.
The Library retained ownership of St. James Hall, intending
that the building would continue to support library
operations.It was at that time renamed the Richmond
Hotel.
Fiery
catastrophe
again struck the Library’s former home -- on March 18, 1887,
the Richmond Hotel went up in flames with a loss of 15
lives. Gone was St. James Hall -- even worse for the
Library was the loss of $30,000 in annual revenue.
Eidlitz
was
again enlisted to design a new “modern, fireproof” hotel to
replace the lost Richmond; built at a cost of $675,000 and now
named the Hotel
Iroquois, it immediately became the city’s most
elegant hotel. The Library leased the hotel’s management to
outside operators for $54,000 per year.
A
change in State law in 1895-96 made the Hotel Iroquois a
taxable property, causing a financial crisis for the Library
in putting the income from the successful property in
jeopardy. The Library was shortly thereafter forced to sell
the hotel, with the proceeds to be used to pay off
indebtedness on the new building. This was part of the
negotiation with the City of Buffalo in 1896 to take over the
funding of the library, now renamed again as the “Buffalo
Public Library” in 1897. Citing “too much
government interference” in the operations of the Library,
Larned resigned his post that year, but continued to advocate
for libraries for the rest of his life.
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