Mott Haven Library
321 East 140th Street | also 305 Alexander Avenue | Mott Haven | built 1905
Open on the map3 entries
The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1905
The Mott Haven branch opens as the first New York Public Library branch in the Bronx
The New York Public Library's Mott Haven branch first admitted readers on March 31, 1905; no earlier branch of the library had been sited in the Bronx. Its construction was paid for out of Andrew Carnegie's 1901 grant for branch libraries across the city. The corner lot at Alexander Avenue had held a frame house owned by Dr. A. Arthur King, who led the Lutheran congregation whose church stood at Brown Place and East 139th Street.
- 1905
Babb, Cook & Willard give the Mott Haven library the form of a Renaissance palazzo
Babb, Cook & Willard, the firm behind Andrew Carnegie's own Fifth Avenue mansion and eight of his New York branch libraries, designed this three-story building of red Flemish bond brick and Indiana limestone; William L. Crow was the builder. As in an Italian palazzo, the tallest windows are on the second floor. The site cost $22,500 and the library a total of $119,296. Inside, the oak-paneled vestibule, cast iron stair and second-floor skylight survive.
Source: hdc.org
- 1949
The Mott Haven library's live-in custodian job is advertised at $60.83 a month
Like every Carnegie branch library, the Mott Haven branch kept a custodian living in the building. In 1949 the job was advertised at a salary of $60.83 a month, with a five-room apartment on the premises as part of the pay, according to the Historic Districts Council, citing Mary B. Dierickx's history of the city's Carnegie libraries.
Source: hdc.org
Nearby
- 313 East 140th Street1 entry
- 311 East 140th Street2 entries
- 299 Alexander Avenue2 entries
- 297 Alexander Avenue1 entry
- 295 Alexander Avenue2 entries
- 306 Alexander Avenue2 entries