Greenwich Library is the main library in the Greenwich library system of Greenwich, Connecticut, United States. [1] The Greenwich Library system consists of the Main Library and its Byram Shubert and Cos Cob branches.
Greenwich Library is the main library in the Greenwich library system of Greenwich, Connecticut, United States. [1] The Greenwich Library system consists of the Main Library and its Byram Shubert and Cos Cob branches.
Originally established in 1800 with a collection of books housed in the Ebenezer Mead House, what was then known as the Greenwich Town Library and Greenwich Reading Room and Library Association began under an official subscription system of $6 shares beginning in 1805. [2] Under this system, permitted members could borrow the same amount of books as the number of shares they owned. Non-members were not permitted access to the library’s collection until 1878, although even then, borrowing books off-site remained exclusive to members. [3]
With the collection growing steadily throughout the first half of the 1800s, the library was moved to the second floor of the Moshier Building on Greenwich Avenue in 1877, [4] and later to the Ray Building across the street in 1884. [5] Philanthropist and education advocate Elizabeth Milbank Anderson later gifted a new library building to Greenwich under the guidelines of establishing the library as a free, public institution and acquiring a designated building lot for the new space. The new building was opened in 1895, and four years later, the library established its services for free public use. The name was changed from the Greenwich Reading Room and Library Association to the Greenwich Library in 1907. [6]
The library received funding from donations and a matched endowment from Milbank Anderson up until 1917, after which it was funded through a combination of private donations and public funding from taxpayers. [7] Under the direction of librarian Isabelle Hurlblatt, the library also acquired funding for a gallery space in the new building, allowing the local artists of the Greenwich Society of Artists to showcase their work. [8] This space would be named the Hurlblatt Gallery, later to be renamed the Flinn Gallery.
A greater expansion of the library was designated in the 1950s by library President Edward Seymour, whose initial attempt to raise $600,000 in 1956 failed. [9] [10] However, a second campaign, which included the purchase and redevelopment of the Franklin Simon & Co. department store and a donation of $100,000 from the town, succeeded, and the library was moved to its new space on West Putnam Avenue in March 1960. Further expansions over the next 50 years include the Marie Cole auditorium, which would provide a second-floor extension of the library and house non-fiction materials; the addition of a reading area and nine study rooms; the Flinn Gallery for showcasing educational art exhibitions; and the expansions of the main reading room, office spaces, and a café. [11] In 1999 the library renovated the Putnam Avenue building and added a 32,000 sq. ft. wing designed by Cesar Pelli & Associates. [12]
In 2017, the library received a five-star national library honor from Library Journal, marking its ninth time receiving the award since the award's conception in 2011. [13]
The Cos Cob Library is located in Cos Cob area of the town of Greenwich, [14] close to US Route 1. [15] It was established in 1930 [16] and is one of the branches of the Greenwich Library.
The Byram Shubert Library is the other branch.
Perrot Memorial Library is located in the Old Greenwich section of the town of Greenwich. It is owned by the Perrot Library Association, a private, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, and is affiliated with but not part of the Greenwich Library. They share library cards and a catalog. Unlike branch libraries in Greenwich, it has its own website. As of 2017, the collection includes about 60,000 books and the library subscribes to 110 periodicals. Circulation is over 240,000 items. [17]
In 2017, the 1931 colonial-style library building was locally landmarked. [18] [19] [20]
Greenwich Village is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village also contains several subsections, including the West Village west of Seventh Avenue and the Meatpacking District in the northwest corner of Greenwich Village.
Fairfield County is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is the most populous county in the state and was also its fastest-growing from 2010 to 2020. As of the 2020 census, the county's population was 957,419, representing 26.6% of Connecticut's overall population. The closest to the center of the New York metropolitan area, the county contains four of the state's top 7 largest cities—Bridgeport (1st), Stamford (2nd), Norwalk (6th), and Danbury (7th)—whose combined population of 433,368 is nearly half the county's total population.
Greenwich is a town in southwestern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. At the 2020 census, the town had a total population of 63,518. The largest town on Connecticut's Gold Coast, Greenwich is home to many hedge funds and other financial services firms. Greenwich is a principal community of the Bridgeport–Stamford–Norwalk–Danbury metropolitan statistical area, which comprises all of Fairfield County.
Bernard Ralph Maybeck was an American architect in the Arts and Crafts Movement of the early 20th century. He was an instructor at University of California, Berkeley. Most of his major buildings were in the San Francisco Bay Area.
César Pelli was an Argentine-American architect who designed some of the world's tallest buildings and other major urban landmarks. Two of his most notable buildings are the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur and the World Financial Center in New York City. The American Institute of Architects named him one of the ten most influential living American architects in 1991 and awarded him the AIA Gold Medal in 1995. In 2008, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat presented him with The Lynn S. Beedle Lifetime Achievement Award.
Cos Cob is a neighborhood and census-designated place in the town of Greenwich, Connecticut. It is located on the Connecticut shoreline in southern Fairfield County. It had a population of 6,770 at the 2010 census.
The Bush–Holley House is a National Historic Landmark and historic house museum at 39 Strickland Road in the Cos Cob section of Greenwich, Connecticut. It was constructed circa 1730 and in the late nineteenth century was a boarding house and the center of the Cos Cob Art Colony, Connecticut's first art colony. From 1890 to 1920, the house was a gathering place for artists, writers and editors, and scores of art students came to study with leading American Impressionists John Henry Twachtman, J. Alden Weir, Theodore Robinson, and Childe Hassam. It is currently operated as a historic site by the Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich, and is open for tours.
Byram is a neighborhood/section and census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Greenwich in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It had a population of 4,146 at the 2010 census, and a census-estimated population of 4,216 in 2018. An endcap of Connecticut's Gold Coast, Byram is the southernmost point in the town of Greenwich and the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is separated from Port Chester, Westchester County, New York, by the Byram River. Byram was once known as East Port Chester.
The Bruce Museum is a museum in downtown Greenwich, Connecticut with both art and natural history exhibition space. The Bruce's main building sits on a hill in a downtown park, and its tower can be easily seen by drivers passing by on Interstate 95. Permanent exhibits include minerals, area Native American history and culture, changes in the area landscape and environment by human activity, and dioramas of Connecticut woodland wildlife and birds. The museum hosts changing exhibitions of art, photography, natural history, science, history and culture.
The history of Greenwich, Connecticut.
Old Greenwich is an affluent coastal village in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 6,611.
Glenville is a neighborhood and census-designated place in the town of Greenwich in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 2,327. It is located in the western part of Greenwich at the falls of the Byram River, which provided waterpower when this was a mill village. The area is home to Glenville Elementary school, Western Civic Center and a volunteer fire station, the Glenville Fire Department.
Cos Cob station is a commuter rail stop on the Metro-North Railroad's New Haven Line, located in the Cos Cob district of Greenwich, Connecticut.
The Advocate is a seven-day daily newspaper based in Stamford, Connecticut. The paper is owned and operated by Hearst Communications, a multinational corporate media conglomerate with $4 billion in revenues.
Cos Cob Power Station was a historic power station near the Metro-North Railroad tracks, the Mianus River and Sound Shore Drive in the Cos Cob area of Greenwich, Connecticut.
Pemberwick is a neighborhood/section and census-designated place in Greenwich in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2010 census it had a population of 3,680.
Greenwich is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It is one of several CDPs within the town of Greenwich and corresponds to the historic municipal center of the town and surrounding residential and commercial areas. As of the 2010 census, the population of the Greenwich CDP was 12,942, out of 61,171 in the entire town.
Known originally as The Greenwich Society of Artists, the Greenwich Art Society is an organization dedicated to promoting arts education in the town of Greenwich, Connecticut. It was founded in 1912 by artists affiliated with the "Cos Cob School," and many associated with the development of the American Impressionist movement, who sought “the promotion and maintenance of the fine arts and the exhibition of works of art in Greenwich.”
The River Road-Mead Avenue Historic District encompasses a well-preserved late-19th century upper-class residential area in the Cos Cob area of Greenwich, Connecticut. Extending along River Road between Mead Avenue and Robertson Lane, and along Mead Avenue most of the way to East Putnam Avenue, the district includes fourteen fine houses, most of which were built between 1870 and 1907. The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.
The Gold Coast, also known as Lower Fairfield County or Southwestern Connecticut not limited to the Connecticut panhandle, is an affluent part of Western Connecticut that includes the entire southern portion of Fairfield County as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, Super-Public Use Microdata Area (Super-PUMA) Region 09600. The area is about 50 miles northeast of New York City, and is home to many wealthy Manhattan business executives. Parts of the region are served by the Western Connecticut Council of Governments.
Coordinates: 41°01′44″N73°37′46″W / 41.0289°N 73.6295°W
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