In 1894, the village of Garvanza lay...

In 1894, the village of Garvanza lay in open country between the rapidly growing towns of Los Angeles and Pasadena. Los Angeles’ population had reached 70,000, Pasadena’s was approaching 10,000, but Garvanza boasted no more than a few hundred residents.

The hamlet was linked to its larger neighbors by rutted roads known for choking dust in summer and deep mud after winter rains. Many residents worked at trades, but there also were a number of farms and ranches. Citrus fruit thrived and flocks of sheep grazed on the hillsides.

Twenty-two Garvanza women known as the Magazine Club were the driving force that year in creating a lending library of 800 volumes in a small building. All the books were donated by local citizens, and annual membership was 50 cents.

In 1899, Garvanza, near what is now Figueroa Street and York Boulevard, was annexed by Los Angeles. The library became a city library branch.

In July, 1904, a new library opened at Avenue 64 and Ruby Street. Architecturally, it belonged to the historic Mission style, but its amenities were up to date, including a gas heater and electric lights.

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The area kept pace with Los Angeles’ mushrooming population, and by 1913 the library needed more room. On Sept. 8, 1913, the Los Angeles Times reported, “Highland Park and Garvanza shall have a (new) library. It will be a Carnegie Institution, located either at Avenue 56 and Pasadena Avenue (later named Figueroa Street) or in the delta between Piedmont and Pasadena avenues.”

Civic leaders organized a subscription drive and raised $5,680 toward purchase of the latter site. The Arroyo Seco Branch Library was paid for from a Carnegie grant to Los Angeles and completed in 1914--the same year the Southwest Museum, another Highland Park landmark, moved into its Mt. Washington home. Total cost for the library’s site and construction was $44,775.

The library was an impressive edifice, reminiscent of classic Greek architecture. Slender columns lined the building’s exterior, framed the tall windows and flanked the portico at the front entrance. The motto “Free to All” was carved in cream-colored stone over the door.

The building was also notable for unusual problems posed by the site’s shape and contours. In its December, 1917 issue, Popular Mechanics noted that the site was “V-shaped (and) bounded by two converging streets, one of which slopes downward from the intersection past the site, while the other slopes upward past the site. The building faces the point of the lot.”

These problems were overcome by sculpting the earth along the building’s perimeter and making it slightly wider at the back than at the front. Standing well back from the library, a spectator could see the front and both side walls. From the front, the library appeared to be one story, but in back, on lower ground, the entrance to a basement-level auditorium could be seen.

Michael W. McClintock, raised in Highland Park, remembers the building well. “That old building conveyed a feeling of power and permanence. Inside you could just smell all the years of people, books, dust--and history. It was a warm, comfortable place. After my own home, that library made the deepest impression on me as a 5- to 10-year-old child.”

The Carnegie grant library was razed in 1959 after 45 years, and a new structure replaced it, opening Oct. 17, 1960. The building, still in use at 6145 N. Figueroa St., is streamlined, unadorned, functional.

But McClintock recalls one special feature of the building that won him over quickly. “The first week it was open my dad drove me to the library, and I didn’t know quite what to expect. He could (have) parked at the curb or in the lot beside the library. Instead, without a word, he swung the car onto a narrow ramp and zoomed to a rooftop parking lot.”

His fond memories of the two libraries have influenced his life. McClintock, 44, attended nearby Occidental College and USC, where he earned a master’s degree in library science. He worked as an intern at the Arroyo Seco branch from 1974 to 1976. Today he is area manager of the Los Angeles County library system’s east San Gabriel Valley region.

The two library buildings have occupied a strip of land between a hill known as Mt. Angeles and the Arroyo Seco for a total of 80 years. Now the Arroyo Seco Regional Library, the facility is headquarters for the 10 branch libraries of the city’s northeast area.

And in 100 years, the Magazine Club’s collection of 800 books has grown to 78,000 volumes.