George Dahl’s Sleek Downtown Library — 1955
by Paula Bosse
by Paula Bosse
This little 31-page booklet was issued to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Dallas Public Library. The library was built on the site of the old (beautiful!) Carnegie Library and was vacated when the current library (the J. Erik Jonssen Central Library) opened on Young St. in 1982. Unbelievably, the building has remained empty for over 30 years.
This is the only downtown building I have very distinct memories of from childhood. My mother took us to the library often, and I LOVED that place. I loved the building, the space, the books, the adventure of being downtown — I loved everything but that creepy sculpture of the kid standing in the hands that hung on the outside of the building!
This great library was designed by the legendary (and prolific!) Dallas architect, George Dahl. He moved easily from the streamlined grandeur of the Art Deco buildings of Fair Park to the sleek mid-century-modern-cool of this wonderful downtown library.
I know there are fans of this sculpture (“Youth in the Hands of God” by Marshall Fredericks), but I’m afraid I am not one of them. I loved art as a child (in fact, I can remember checking out framed art reproductions from this very library), but, as I said, even as a kid, I strongly disliked that creepy sculpture. The kid was fine, it was those giant disembodied hands. When the library moved to its current location in 1982, this sculpture was left behind to languish for years inside the empty building. It was eventually sold, and the boy and the hands are now resting comfortably in retirement, somewhere in Michigan.
There was a huge controversy about the Harry Bertoia sculptural screen seen above, hanging over the circulation desk. (I LOVED this piece as a kid!) The mayor — R. L. Thornton — HATED it, and the brouhaha-loving newspapers launched themselves into the fray by running apoplectic editorials which, of course, only fanned the flames of outrage. After the “scandal” died down, the art was eventually given the okay to stay, but not before a lot of people made a lot of noise about how the city of Dallas had wasted the $8,500 it had spent on the commission. Unlike the discarded hands sculpture, the screen was moved to the new library, where it remains today.
This is how I remember the library. Lots of space, cool furniture, and flooded with light.
I LOVE this photo!
A detail of the front cover artwork, by Texas artist E. M. “Buck” Schiwetz. I love the driver in the cowboy hat (he must have been awfully small or that car must have been awfully big to accommodate that hat). The energetic frisson of downtown Dallas in the Mad Men era is dampened a bit by those damn hands on the building that seemed to follow you everywhere you went!
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Sources & Notes
All images from the booklet Five Years Forward: The Dallas Public Library, 1955-1960, compiled and written by Lillian Moore Bradshaw and Marvin Stone. Drawings by E. M. (Buck) Schiwetz. Photographs by C. D. Bayne. (Dallas: Carl Hertzog for Friends of the Dallas Public Library, 1961). (Photos from the archives of the Dallas Public Library.)
More on the history and construction of the Old Dallas Central Library (as well as tidbits about the ridiculous controversy regarding the commissioned art) is here.
Even MORE on the artwork scandals (the hands, the hands, the HANDS!) as well as photos of the beautiful Carnegie Library that was razed to build the 1955 library can be found here.
And just because it’s weird, here’s a postcard showing an early, possibly even creepier depiction of the “hands” sculpture (if those are the “hands of God”…). I guess they wanted to get a postcard out before the sculpture was finished and installed.
I’ve posted one further image from this booklet — a drawing of the 1961 Dallas skyline by E. M. “Buck” Schiwetz — here.
UPDATE — Dec., 2017: The Dallas Morning News has moved its operations to the long-vacant library, insuring this wonderful building’s continued existence for many more years! More here.
Click pictures for larger images (some are MUCH larger — click twice!).
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Copyright © 2014 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 
[…] From the booklet Five Years Forward: The Dallas Public Library, 1955-1960 (more of which can be accessed here). […]
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Now the downtown library is entirely full of homeless people. When did that transition take place?
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Probably a long time ago. In 1985, I was a college student doing research using some Dallas Central Library resources, and during the day, my area was full of homeless men.
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My sister worked there for a few years in the early 60’s. About that sculpture….I used to always wonder who the kid seemed to be looking up to if the hands were below him….and just try holding your hands like that….a rather non relaxed pose I think.
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You might have been over-thinking it. I just usually looked away. But, you know, some people really, REALLY loved that thing.
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I have read that when the boy statue was first cast, even the city fathers turned away, because he was nude! They (city council or library board) said put some pants on this boy or we ain’t going to take it and pay for it.
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[…] of weeks ago several readers asked about the sudden disappearance of the marble panels decorating George Dahl’s old Dallas Central Library, which is attached to the former Statler Hilton on Commerce Street. The new-look library’s a […]
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How many remember going to train depot library when the the new library was being built. That was an experience!!
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I’ve never heard about this, Janice. I guess books were set up in some area of Union Station — sometime in the ’50s? I really need to check on this! Thanks!
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[…] News building was also designed by Dahl … as was the soon-to-be HQ of The News, the old Dallas Public Library at Commerce and […]
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[…] And let’s look back to the beginnings of the building as the wonderfully modern Dallas Public Library in one of my very first Flashback Dallas posts, “George Dahl’s Sleek Downtown Library — 1955,” here. […]
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I’m so thrilled to hear that the building has been saved and is being used again. I grew up in Dallas and did volunteer work in the Children’s Department all through high school and my mom worked in the library for several years. We moved from Dallas in 1969, but I’ve never loved a library more than the main branch of the Dallas Public Library. It was just like a second home for so many years!
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At 80, I get terribly frustrated when I have no memory of certain things. The Carnegie Library — no recollection of the building I walked by for many years to my mother’s workplace at Harwood and Jackson. As far as the boy in the hand, I really didn’t give it any thought one way or the other, but do remember, lol.
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My very first introduction to the Dallas Public Library was via the Bookmobile which stopped weekly at the Bruton Terrace Shopping Center (Bruton Rd and Prairie Creek in Pleasant Grove).
From there, it was a short journey to the branch library in Pleasant Grove. But on my first visit to the Central Libray, I thought I had died and gone to heaven!
Thanx to the Dallas Morning News for saving this beautiful building, and thanx to my long-lost third-grade friend, Charles Compton, for introducing me to the magic of the public library (he also taught me chess!).
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From 1971-1973 I worked in the Dallas Public Library downtown. I have so many fond memories of being there. I first worked in the Audio Visual department checking in LP records, shelving books, filing movie reviews in the bank of filing cabinets and many other things. In the picture above of the Audio Visual Department the woman standing in the center wearing the white dress is Masha Porte who was my boss. I was called a page. I later worked for Mrs. Boykin and Lloyd Bockstruck in the Genealogy Department. I was even allowed to answer questions on the phone! I really liked the Bertoia screen and the boy in the hands too! I never knew what that sculpture was called until now. Thanks for your great article.
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Thanks! And thanks for the great memories, Daniel.
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Thank you for preserving this bit of Dallas Public Library history. The Friends of the Dallas Public Library just celebrated its 70th anniversary and continues to focus its efforts on being the Library’s friend in good times and in challenging ones, http://www.supportdpl.org.
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Absolutely! Thanks, Mary!
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