Quincy, Mass. Historical and Architectural Survey

41 Beale Street (Wollaston Library)

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
The public library system began in Quincy in 1871 when the citizens voted to appropriate $3500 plus the proceeds of the dog tax for the salary of a librarian and the upkeep of a library building if an equal amount could be raised by private subscription. Public response was so fervent that a library opened the very same year in the Adanis Academy Building, 8 Adams Street. Three years later the library was transferred to the vacated Evangelical Congregational Church, at Revere Road and Hancock Street, where it remained until 1882 when it was moved into its magnificent new building Henry Hobson Richardson's Thomas Crane Public Library, at 40 Washington Street.

The Wollaston Branch of the Thomas Crane Public Library was erected in 1922 at 41 Beale Street in. an area of Wollaston that had developed in the 1870's. The land for the library was presented to the Trustees of the Thomas Crane Public Library by the Wollaston Woman's Club and part of the Crane Memorial Fund was used to build the $15,000 structure.

The architect was the versatile William Chapman, whose practice was in Boston although he lived in Wollaston. The Wollaston library appears to have been one of Chapman's earlier Quincy commissions, only preceded by the Old Courthouse (1911) aid the West Quincy library, 1240 Furnace Brook Parkway (1921). Commissions to follow were the Quincy Point Junior High School, Edwards Street (1927) the Merrymount School, 4 Agawam Street (1929). and the 1930 addition to the Montclair School, 8 Belmont Street.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and/or REFERENCES
Assessors Records.
William Churchill- Edwards, Historic Quincy, Massachusetts, 1957, p. 196.
L. Draper Hill, Jr. "The Crane Library", 1962, p. 11-14.

ARCHITECTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:
Built a year after the West Quincy Library, the 1922 Wollaston Library was designed by the same architect, William Chapman, using the same wall material, stucco and a grander Classical Revival style instead of the simple Colonial Revival style of the earlier library. The one story rectangular structure has a hip roof and an elegant entrance within a projecting central gabled pavillion. The transomed door is set within a mitered surround, formed by Ionic pilasters, is topped with a dentilled entablature and, is capped with a richly embellished arched pediment. Within this pediment is book in low relief surrounded by a circle, which in turn is framed by acanthus leaves, the whole under an arched panel with the words, "Thomas Crane Public Library", and another decorative arched panel. To emphasize the richness of the entrance, a contrasting band was placed over the arched pediment. In the "Report of the Trustees" ( of the Thomas Crane Public Library) to the Mayor of Quincy in 1923, It was written "'The outstanding event of the past year has been the completion of our new Wollaston Branch building .... is a real accomplishment in branch library architecture, being comparatively inexpensive ($15,000) and yet both attractive and eminently fitted for library purposes." In spite of its modest scale, it Is a fine institutional building and an important component in the Beale Street streetscape. It will be recommended that this property be nominated to the National Register of Historic Places as a fine example of' a simple Classical Revival institutional building of the early 20th century.

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