Enoch Pratt Free Library

Former branch number 5, now a church.

The merchant and financier Enoch Pratt, in a letter to the Baltimore City Council on January 21, 1882, offered to donate and construct a free public library with several neighborhood branches open to all the citizens of the City of Baltimore (and its surrounding environs). After some debate and discussion which was also widely reported in the local newspapers, the mayor and council accepted the gift and the terms of its conditions later that year, which were subsequently approved by the citizens in a referendum held during an election that October, 1882. Construction of a Central Library began later that year. The original Central Library building opened on January 5, 1886 .[1] Part of Pratt's donation to the city, it was originally valued at approximately $250,000 and was accompanied by the gift of initially four other neighborhood branches in the quadrants of the city which also opened that year and were soon joined by two others, along with an endowment of $1.058 million (in 1880s money). However, always a very thrifty man, Mr. Pratt provided that the bricks from the three 1820s-era townhouses that were to be demolished for his new city library were to be knocked off, cleaned and re-used in constructing a parish house and hall for his church, the First Independent Church of Baltimore, now the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore.

Designed by Charles L. Carson,"Old Central" occupied a fraction of the same plot of land as its successor 47 years later, facing West Mulberry Street near the corner of Cathedral Street. The structure's elaborate Romanesque Revival architecture became a target of criticism from journalists during final years of existence: H. L. Mencken of the Baltimore Sun, a frequent and prolific user of the branch at Calhoun and Hollins Streets, judged it "so infernally hideous that it ought to be pulled down by the common hangman" [9]

By the late 1920s, Old Central could no longer hold the library's continually expanding collection, even though an annex had been added at the rear.[10] Baltimore City voters approved a loan for $3 million by an almost 3-to-1 margin on May 3, 1927. The Central Pratt Library's staff, services and 400,000 volumes were relocated to temporary quarters at the old Rouse-Hempstone Building at West Redwood Street and Hopkins Place (now the site of the Royal Farms Arena for a two-year stay during 1931–1933. At this temporary location, the Central Pratt was able to reorganize and plan for its future arrangements of departments and try out its soon-to-be famous "department store windows" displays[1] It was razed in 1931, along with several townhouses facing Cathedral Street, including a significant one formerly owned by Robert Goodloe Harper.

The replacement structure occupies the entire block facing the Old Baltimore Cathedral.[9] Construction began in June 1931, during the darkest, most difficult days of the financial Great Depression and along with other major construction projects occurring at that time with the building of a new U.S. Courthouse and Post Office at Battle Monument Square at North Calvert and East Lexington-Fayette Streets, and the new Municipal Office Building on Holliday Street, across from the old Baltimore City Hall and the new Federal Courthouse/Post Office, offered an important source of desperately needed employment to the hundreds of out-of-work citizens of the city.[1]

The architects were C. and N. Friz, with consulting architects Tilton & Githens from New York.[11] The building was completed in January 1933, and opened to the public on February 3, with a record of not one day of suspended service since the original beginnings of "Enoch Pratt's Folly" on January 5, 1886.[12] In Spring of 2016, ground was broken on a $115 million restoration of the historic Central Library. The building remains open to the public. February 11–19, the Central Library closed to the public to relocate departments to the newly renovated upper floors, and to begin renovation of the lower levels.[13] The restoration is expected to be complete in the Fall of 2019.

The Maryland Department, located on the second floor of the 2004 Annex, contains many of the library's prized collections. These include 275,000 mounted documents (mostly newspaper articles), 2100 maps, 6000 pieces of ephemera, and 24,000 photographs, all relevant to Maryland and Maryland history.[14] The Maryland Department also has a room full of books pertaining to Maryland, with an emphasis on Baltimore.

Most materials in the Maryland Department are non-circulating but available for patrons to examine.