If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know I love libraries.
Whether to find a new book to read, attend local events, or buy books at the library friends’ used book sale, you can’t keep me away from the library.
And when I travel to a new city or town, I always make time to visit their library.
Last week, that meant visiting the beautiful Hackley Public Library in downtown Muskegon, Michigan.
Part of the Muskegon Historic District, the Hackley Library opened in October 1890.
Built by the Patton and Fisher architectural firm in Chicago, the impressive Richardsonian Romanesque structure consists of Maine granite trimmed with Marquette sandstone.
Check out that turret as you ascend the outside stairs!
The library lobby is impressive with Italian marble mosaic floor tile.
Wrought iron rails of the marble-walled stairwell with stained glass windows lead you to the second floor Youth Services department.
When you take the stairs back down to the main floor, enter the Great Room and look to the back of the hall.
Beyond the book stacks, on the back wall you’ll see the light pouring through the gorgeous stained glass windows with portraits of William Shakespeare, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and William Hickling Prescott.
The library has rows and rows of bookshelves, including a back reference room which I didn’t check out.
What surprised me at their library: the computer room had plenty of open seats!
One of the first times I’ve visited a local library where there were available computers for the public.
