DC Library's Georgetown Branch, Home of Archives, Hit by Fire

-- Library Journal, 5/1/2007

The Georgetown branch of the District of Columbia Public Library, a home to archives of the historic neighborhood, suffered significant damage April 30 in a fire, with the building "in various stages of collapse," a fire department spokesman told the Washington Post. Archivist and librarian Gerry McCoy told the Post that photos, address listings, and oil paintings of the neighborhood were jeopardized, as well as old newspapers and Civil War maps. The fire was fierce enough to keep firefighters at bay for two hours after the blaze was reported at 12:30 p.m., three hours after the branch opened. No cause was immediately available.

The building had no sprinklers; Monica Lewis, a spokeswoman for the library, told LJ that sprinklers are not required on buildings over a certain age in the District of Columbia but were going to be part of a major renovation of the building. Work on the building's exterior had just begun. In New York City, sprinklers are similarly not required in small branches, Peter Magnani, director of facilities for the Queens Borough Public Library, told LJ. However, he noted, "If you have books underground, in a basement or cellar, it requires a sprinkler."

The Georgetown branch, which opened in 1935, according to the branch history, is located within the Georgetown National Register Historic District, which was designated in 1967. It contains the collections of the Peabody Library, a private lending library, which upon its establishment in 1875 was housed in a local school, but moved to the new branch in 1935. The Peabody Room has served as the city's only special collection of Georgetown history.