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Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny facts for kids

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Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny
Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny.jpg
Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny is located in Pittsburgh
Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny
Location in Pittsburgh
Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny is located in Pennsylvania
Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny
Location in Pennsylvania
Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny is located in the United States
Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny
Location in the United States
Location Allegheny Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Area 1 acre (0.40 ha)
Built 1886–90
Architect Smithmeyer & Pelz
Architectural style Romanesque Revival, Richardsonian Romanesque
NRHP reference No. 74001736
Quick facts for kids
Significant dates
Added to NRHP November 1, 1974

The Carnegie Free Library of Allegheny is situated in the Allegheny Center neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Donated to the public by entrepreneur Andrew Carnegie, it was built from 1886 to 1890 on a design by John L. Smithmeyer and Paul J. Pelz.

It was commissioned in 1886, the first Carnegie library to be commissioned in the United States. Yet it did not open until 1890 thus making it the second library to open. The first one to open being the Carnegie Free Library of Braddock, built for steel-workers in Braddock, 9 miles up the Monongahela River from Pittsburgh.

The building also features the first Carnegie Music Hall in the United States. The Music Hall at the Braddock Library would not open until an 1893 expansion of that structure.

The running costs were met from local taxes – unlike the Carnegie Library in Braddock, which received an endowment from Carnegie. After a mid-2000s lightning strike, the library was moved to a new building a few blocks north on Federal Street. Following the move, the New Hazlett Theater was the primary tenant. In April 2019, the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh opened Museum Lab, a makerspace for youth aged 10+.

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.

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