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Enoch Pratt Free Library
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===Current=== By the late 1920s, Old Central could no longer hold the library's continually expanding collection, even though an annex had been added at the rear.<ref name="eguntstbs">{{Cite web|url=http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2003-11-02/entertainment/0311030438_1_central-library-enoch-pratt-pratt-free-library|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130117193151/http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2003-11-02/entertainment/0311030438_1_central-library-enoch-pratt-pratt-free-library|url-status=dead|archive-date=January 17, 2013|title=Gunts, Edward. "A new chapter is opening for the Pratt Library," ''The Baltimore Sun'', Sunday, November 2, 2003.|date=2 November 2003 }}</ref> Baltimore City voters approved a loan for $3 million by an almost 3-to-1 margin on May 3, 1927. The Central Pratt Library's staff, services and 400,000 volumes were relocated to temporary quarters at the old Rouse-Hempstone Building at West Redwood Street and Hopkins Place (now the site of the [[Royal Farms Arena]] for a two-year stay during 1931β1933. At this temporary location, the Central Pratt was able to reorganize and plan for its future arrangements of departments and try out its soon-to-be famous "department store windows" displays<ref name="epflhistory"/> It was razed in 1931, along with several townhouses facing Cathedral Street, including a significant one formerly owned by [[Robert Goodloe Harper]]. The replacement structure occupies the entire block facing the Old [[Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary|Baltimore Cathedral]].<ref name="mkzajacstylebal"/> Construction began in June 1931, during the darkest, most difficult days of the financial [[Great Depression]] and along with other major construction projects occurring at that time with the building of a new U.S. Courthouse and Post Office at [[Battle Monument]] Square at North Calvert and East Lexington-Fayette Streets, and the new Municipal Office Building on Holliday Street, across from the old [[Baltimore City Hall]] and the new Federal Courthouse/Post Office, offered an important source of desperately needed employment to the hundreds of out-of-work citizens of the city.<ref name="epflhistory"/> The architects were C. and N. Friz, with consulting architects [[Edward Lippincott Tilton|Tilton & Githens]] from New York.<ref>{{cite web|title=Enoch Pratt Free Library NRHP Nomination Form|url=https://mht.maryland.gov/secure/medusa/PDF/Baltimore%20City/B-2068.pdf|website=State of Maryland|access-date=30 April 2018}}</ref> The building was completed in January 1933, and opened to the public on February 3, with a record of not one day of suspended service since the original beginnings of "Enoch Pratt's Folly" on January 5, 1886.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.prattlibrary.org/uploadedFiles/www/services/meeting_rooms/CENTRALHALLwithmap.pdf|title=Information about the Central Library and its Central Hall β Enoch Pratt Free Library.|access-date=26 January 2018}}</ref> In Spring of 2016, ground was broken on a $115 million restoration of the historic Central Library. The building remained open to the public. February 11β19, the Central Library closed to the public to relocate departments to the newly renovated upper floors, and to begin renovation of the lower levels.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://baltimorefishbowl.com/stories/pratt-central-library-shut-9-days-first-floor-renovations/|title = Baltimore Fishbowl | Pratt Central Library to Shut Down for 9 Days for First-Floor Renovations -|date = February 2018}}</ref> The restoration was completed in Fall of 2019. A Grand Reopening block party drew a crowd of 9,000 people. In 2020, the Senator [[Barbara Mikulski|Barbara A. Mikulski]] Room, with mementos and Mikulski's [[Presidential Medal of Freedom]], was opened in the Central Library.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web|url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/politics/bs-md-pol-mikulski-capitol-20220608-clg3oiiixvaknd5glpvse2clxa-story.html|title=Out of 540 U.S. Capitol rooms, two now are named for female senators. One of them is Maryland's Barbara Mikulski.|website=Baltimore Sun|date=8 June 2022 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.prattlibrary.org/locations/central/mikulski-room|title=Senator Barbara A. Mikulski Room|website=Enoch Pratt Free Library}}</ref>
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