Richard Henry Dana Branch
- Architect
- Harry Sims Bent
- Year
- 1926
- Style
- Colonial Revival
- City
- Los Angeles, CA
The Richard Henry Dana Branch, named after author Richard Henry Dana Jr., opened in 1926 as a one-story branch of the Los Angeles Public Library in Cypress Park, designed by architect Harry Sims Bent. It served the neighborhood from a schoolhouse-type building on Pepper Avenue until a larger replacement branch, three times its size, opened in 2001. In 1987 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as part of a thematic nomination of historic LAPL branch libraries.
the building
L-plan portico. The building is laid out in an L-plan under a high-pitched gable roof, its portico marked by paired wood-paneled doors sheltered under an arched canopy on paneled posts. It was originally painted a creamy green with a deep green roof.
A larger successor branch. By 2001, ground broke on a new Cypress Park branch holding 35,000 books, computer stations, and a community meeting room — three times the size of this schoolhouse-type library, which had served the neighborhood since 1927. Plans considered reusing the old building as a senior facility.
the style
Described in its National Register listing as New England Colonial Revival, the branch borrows the vocabulary of an old New England schoolhouse or meetinghouse — a fitting, homey image for a neighborhood library built as Los Angeles expanded its branch system in the 1920s.
More on Colonial Revivalsignificance
Individually designated a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument, the branch was also listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987 as part of a thematic group nomination covering multiple historic Los Angeles Public Library branches.
nearby
- Mount Pleasant House
- Lincoln Heights Jail
- Lincoln Heights Branch Library
- Southwest Museum of the American Indian
- Ziegler Estate
- Masonic Temple (Highland Park)