A Kind of Hush

Sarah Lemanczyk, photo by Karl Herber / karlherber.com

Looking up at the St. Paul Central Library’s four stories of pink Tennessee marble makes you feel small. The Italian Renaissance building, its façade decorated in classical columns and pilasters, looks as though it belongs in a city of grander scale. And indeed, it’s a remnant of a time when St. Paul was more connected to the East Coast—a time when local developers still looked east for inspiration. (Central Library got its spark from New York architect Electus Litchfield.) The interior walls and stairs are wrapped in gray Mankato stone and marble. The chandeliers are gilded and ubiquitous. There is an almost medieval feeling of privilege in being allowed to walk these halls, especially if the object of your desires is not astronomical secrets printed on musty scrolls, but rather, the Trading Places DVD.

Central Library opened its doors in 1917, funded mostly by selling city bonds. In 2000, those doors, along with the rest of the library, received a two-year, $15.9 million renovation. It was the first major restoration in the library’s history; it improved access to the stacks and added more computers while still, somehow, preserving the building’s old-world charms. These days, libraries are generally built to be bright, efficient spaces. And then there’s the Central library.

After passing through a hive of library-related activity—checkout, return, security cameras—the atmosphere becomes hushed, the lights dimmed. Wide stone staircases endlessly curve upward. (You can hear your footsteps.) Chandeliers provide the only light. The aura is rich; the environs silent—quite a feat, considering the building is over 90,000 square feet and holds over a quarter million books.

One of the only outright deviations to the library’s aesthetic is the wide-open children’s section on the first floor. It’s divided into two sections: one with plush, circular sofas for lounging teens; the other with a mass of carpeted space in which kids can run, jump, and shout about their love of reading. Other nods to modernity are the wide, navigable mezzanine stacks and islands of Internet-enabled computers. At any given time, most of the desks that house these machines will be occupied—havens for the older, the ambitious, and the asleep.

Attached to the public library is the James J. Hill Reference Library, which was funded in large part by Gilded Age railroad mogul and philanthropist James J. Hill. Though it’s technically a separate library, no trip to Central is complete without a pass through the Hill’s reading room, a soaring three-story chamber with floor-to-ceiling books, narrow balconies, winding staircases, and large private tables. Here you’ll find free coffee, a clientele sporting button-downs and sensible heels, and all the back issues of Chemical Market Report you’ll ever need.

But the real magic is in the building’s public side, the more average side. As you sink into one of the magazine room’s leatherette armchairs with the latest Lonely Planet guide to somewhere warm, a view of Rice Park spreads out before you. The clunky start-and-stop of the copier machine echoes from behind a row of long, dark wooden tables. It’s the kind of place where, beneath the glorious beamed ceilings and angel friezes, an everyday dad wrapped in Sean John fleece sits with his nose in a book while his young son intermittently doodles and stares out the tall arched windows, his feet dangling high above the stone floor.