Area less than one acre NRHP Reference # 76000138 Opened 1902 | Built 1902 (1902) Added to NRHP August 18, 1976 Phone +1 802-863-3403 | |
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Part of Main Street-College Street Historic District (#88001850) Address 235 College St, Burlington, VT 05401, USA Hours Open today · 10AM–6PMMonday10AM–6PMTuesday10AM–8PMWednesday10AM–8PMThursday10AM–6PMFriday10AM–6PMSaturday10AM–6PMSunday12–6PM Similar The BCA Center, ECHO Lake Aquarium, Flynn Center for the Perfor, Robert Hull Fleming Museum, Battery Park | ||
Fletcher free library vteid
The Fletcher Free Library is the public library serving Burlington, Vermont. It is located at 253 College Avenue, in an architecturally distinguished Beaux Arts building, constructed in 1902 with funding support from philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
Contents
Fletcher free library
History
The Fletcher Free Library was established in 1873, endowed by Mary Martha Fletcher, the daughter of a local businessman. It outgrew its initial building on Church Street by 1901. A new building was constructed in 1901-04 with funds provided by industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie, making it the first of the four Carnegie libraries in the state. It was designed in the Beaux-Arts style by Walter R. B. Willcox of Burlington, who won a competition to receive the commission.
The building had major settling problems in 1973 where it had been built over a filled-in ravine, and the library's collection was moved elsewhere. The possible razing of the building was stopped by a citizens' committee, which successfully had it added to the National Register of Historic Places, and a grant allowed the stabilization and repair of the building. A new modern addition was completed in 1981.
The largest public library in Vermont, the Fletcher Free Library had a budget of over $1 million in 2002. It circulated more books, had more visitors, and had more computers, than any other library in Vermont. In addition to its primary services as Burlington's public library, it is also a community center, a cultural resource for newly arrived immigrants to the Burlington area, and the city's only free public access computer center.
Architecture
The library is located just east of downtown Burlington, at the southeast corner of College Street and South Winooski Avenue. The Carnegie building is a tall single-story structure, built of brick with terra cotta trim and resting on a granite foundation. Its central bay projects, providing the building's original entrance beneath a gabled roof, while a larger hip-roof section projects to the rear. It has rusticated brick corner pilasters and an elaborately detailed Corinthian cornice. To the left, the modern three-story addition is attached to the rear left of the original building, and now provides the main entrance via a walkway between the two sections.