Beaches Branch, Toronto Public Library 1916

Photos by Alan L Brown - Posted June, 2007

Here at 2161 Queen Street East stands an original Carnegie Library recently renovated. Want to borrow a book, a CD, a DVD? You've come to the right place! A 2006 Heritage Toronto plaque beside the front door gives us this information:

Plaque coordinates: 43.670277 -79.298329

Designed in 17th-century English Collegiate style, Beaches Branch by Kew Gardens replaced a storefront library opened in 1914 at the corner of Queen Street East and Hambly Avenue. The new building was one of three nearly identical libraries (together with Wychwood and High Park) built with a $50,000 grant to the Toronto Public Library from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. George Locke, the chief librarian, wanted the three buildings to "bring to the mind of the people of the outlying districts some recollection of their Scottish and English village type of architecture." The Toronto architecture firm Eden Smith and Sons completed the design, "a decided revolt" from the Classical styling of earlier Carnegie libraries. The brick and stone building features an upper floor modelled on a Tudor Gothic great hall. It boasts a soaring hammer-beamed ceiling, a plain stone fireplace, lead-glass casement windows, and a minstrel gallery. The west wing, built when the library was renovated and restored in 2005, replaces a 1980 addition.

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Posted January 25, 2011
Hi I am a student at York University in my second year and was wondering if you know where i could find primary sources about the plaque on the Beaches Library. Thank you
Angela

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