Free Library of Philadelphia, McPherson Square Branch, 601 East Indiana Avenue, Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, PA

Significance: McPherson Square was one of twenty-five branch libraries constructed between 1904 and 1930 by the Free Library of Philadelphia using a $1.5 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation. Andrew Carnegie's public library construction grants were a major impetus for the growth of these institutions throughout the country. Philadelphia was second only to New York City in the size of the Carnegie grant it received and the number of branch libraries constructed. Each jurisdiction receiving Carnegie library funds was responsible for providing a site and operating expenses equal to ten percent of the cost of construction. Prior to receiving the Carnegie funds in 1903, branch libraries of the Free Library of Philadelphia (founded 1891) were housed in a variety of preexisting structures. The Carnegie library construction campaign provided twenty-five purpose-built branch libraries for the City of Philadelphia, each designed according to the latest standards of library professionalism and using fashionable, but conservative, architectural forms and motifs.

McPherson Square was the nineteenth Carnegie branch library opened by the Free Library of Philadelphia. The construction contract was awarded by the Free Library Board of Trustees Carnegie Fund Committee on December 9, 1915 and the branch opened to the public on May 25, 1917. Because this branch was built in the middle of an existing city park the site was acquired by the Free Library trustees much earlier, on April 9, 1904. The McPherson Square branch was designed by the prominent Philadelphia firm of Wilson Eyre & McIlvaine in the form of an elegant domed Palladian villa.

Survey number: HABS PA-6759
Building/structure dates: after. 1914- before. 1918 Initial Construction