Setting the Facts Straight About our New Canaan 1913 Library

To the editor:

The architect, Alfred H. Taylor was a 1911 prize-winner – the prize being the opportunity to build the 1913 Library to his designs. His sketch and plan were selected from those of a group of well-qualified New York architects, who all summered in New Canaan. But, above all, they designed in the NEW Beaux-Arts style!

Taylor had interned with the New York City architectural firm Jardine and Jardine for 12 years. He apprenticed under William Winthrop Kent, the firm’s principal designer at that time. Kent had apprenticed under Henry Hobson Richardson, widely considered to be the principal architect in developing the small American public library as a building type, differentiating functional areas.
In 1889 Taylor opened his own office on Broadway, and had a house on 7th Avenue. He designed at least three magnificent banks in New York, Pawtucket, RI and Baltimore Md., in the Beaux-Arts Style, between 1903-1905.

There was only one other building in downtown New Canaan in this NEW style: the Town Hall, built in 1910, designed by the New York architect Edgar Josselyn. He had won a traveling scholarship to study at the Ecole des Beaux- Arts in Paris, and became a founding member of the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects in New York.

Contemporaneous with the new library was the 1913 New Canaan Savings Bank next to Town Hall, designed and built by the Hoggson Brothers. Noble Foster Hoggson, son of an engraver from Glasgow, graduated from Yale, studied architecture in Europe, and specialized in designing and writing books about bank buildings.

These three structures were the first glimmering in New Canaan of the City Beautiful movement, taking hold in big cities and small villages like New Canaan in the early 20th century.

Despite what you may hear from the Library spokesperson about our 1913 building:

1. The Main Street facade and the entire Cherry Street façade of 1913 and 1936 remain in excellent condition;

2. Half of the south façade – including the major window opening, eaves (cornice) and parts of the walls remain standing and are still visible and no one knows what the now interior walls contain;

3. The south half of the west façade was removed for in 1979. Our preservation architects have not been given access to conduct probes to determine the extent of the survival of the north half, which the 1979 architectural plans suggest remain in place.

No matter how much remains of the older structures, we will reconstruct these walls and preserve the remaining original interior.

Furthermore, we will install heating, air-conditioning, plumbing, and handicapped bathrooms.
We will work with the tenant to complete the interiors as they wish, whether it be for private business use or community enjoyment.

All for a cost of under $1 million, estimated now at about $800,000.

We love our old library building and will go to great lengths to preserve, protect and re-program that historic structure so that future generations will be able to appreciate its architecture and our town’s history.

Sincerely, Mimi Findlay