Poppenhusen Branch, QBPL, Queens
121-23 14th Avenue
Heins & La Farge, 1904
NYC IL
The only Carnegie-funded library to be designed by the noted firm of Heins & La Farge, this building resembles those contemporaneously designed by the firm for the Bronx Zoo’s Astor Court. The firm was also responsible for a number of the city’s subway stations and for early designs of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The citizens of College Point donated the land for the library and the books were donated by the Poppenhusen Institute, founded in 1868 by German-American businessman Conrad Poppenhusen as a kindergarten and community center. The stipulation of the institute’s gift was that the library would bear its name. The Classical Revival style library is clad in yellow Roman brick with limestone trim, and features a projecting entrance bay with stone banding and a broken pediment above the arched doorway, an ornate cornice with stone shells and two stone cartouches with reliefs of open books. A rear addition was constructed in 1937. The Poppenhusen Branch was designated a New York City Individual Landmark in 2000