LA's art deco central library marks 100 years with 12,000 visitors
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- Los Angeles Central Library drew an estimated 12,000 visitors during its centennial celebration this past week, marking 100 years since architect Bertram Goodhue's art deco landmark opened in 1926.
- The library, financed by a $2.5m municipal bond approved in 1921, houses nearly 3 million books across 89 miles of shelves and fuses Spanish, Egyptian, Byzantine and Islamic architectural influences, including a rooftop mosaic pyramid and two black-gold sphinxes.
- Christina Rice, the library's senior photo librarian and Central 100 co-chair, christened a restored vintage injection-mold vending machine dubbed "Mold-A-Central" that produces wax sphinx replicas and will become a permanent fixture with rotating molds.
- Daniel González's "Luceros y Penumbras" — a 31-by-20-foot, 11-foot-tall, 1,800-pound work billed as the world's largest pop-up book — was assembled in the rotunda and emerged as the most popular attraction of the day.
- The celebration included typewriter-poetry sessions on former catalogue cards, genealogy cabinet browsing, and the issuance of 588 new library cards, while the Octavia lab continued offering 3D printing, sewing and other modern maker tools.
- The library's history includes darker chapters: serial killer Richard Ramirez visited in 1985 to request books on astrology and torture, and a still-unsolved 1986 arson destroyed 400,000 volumes and shut the building for seven years.
Why it matters: The 588 new library cards issued in a single day, combined with 12,000 attendees, demonstrate measurable civic demand for the library's blend of historical character and modern services (job help, citizenship resources, 3D-printing labs) — undercutting any narrative that the institution is obsolete.
