An 'Oops' at North Portland Library

Feb. 14, 2025

By: Fred Leeson

For more than a century, the Multnomah County Library has done an admirable job maintaining and preserving three neighborhood libraries that were built with funds donated by Andrew Carnegie.

The North Portland Library at 512 N. Killingsworth St. attracted sizable crowds when it reopened Feb. 8 after a renovation that included adding an attractive new community room added on at the southeast corner of the historic building erected in 1913.

New lights

Forgive me, then, for quibbling about the replacement of old light fixtures on the ground floor with skinny circular LED fixtures suspended by thin bare wires. The new lights detract from the historic qualities of an attractive building designed in the Jacobethan style by architect Joseph Jaccoberger.

The only worse choice would have been neon.

...versus the earlier fixtures

A devout Catholic, Jaccoberger designed many churches including St. Mary’s Cathedral and Assumption Catholic Church, in addition to many large Portland homes of the early 20th Century.  The North Portland Library carries a distinct religious feel with the main reading room essentially serving as a nave with magnificent wooden trusses.

One can think of the whole building as a sanctuary for knowledge and education rather than religion.

The only good feature of the inappropriate new lights is that they will be easy to replace someday with fixtures that better reflect the spirit of the building.

Dark brick addition is the new community room

Inside the new community room

Carnegie used wealth from his fortune-making steel company to build more than 250 public libraries. He funded seven neighborhood libraries in Multnomah County.  Three, North Portland, Albina and St. Johns, remain as branch libraries.  Two others, East Portland and Arleta, were eventually sold to businesses.  The former Gresham branch now operates as a museum and the South Portland branch was converted to a Parks Bureau office.

As we look back on Carnegie, it is amazing in this era to think of a fabulously wealthy American entrepreneur who decided he wanted to provide a public benefit with his blessings.  His blessings live on. 

Fred Leeson is a former president of the Bosco-Milligan Foundation and a member of the foundation's Board of Advisors.