Long Island librarys secret fascinating past could land it on National Register

It’s one for the books.The century-old Lynbrook Public Library on Long Island has been nominated for the National Register of Historic Places thanks to its famed architect and fascinating history — most of it obscured over the years.Everyday patrons and even some of the library’s seasoned workers may not know that the marvelous building was designed by Hugh Tallant, the same architect behind the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and that its 1929 inception is all thanks to the women’s suffrage movement.They also may be surprised to learn that a disturbed worker-turned-robber destroyed its interior in an arson in the 1950s.“I think [getting on the registry] will show the residents and everybody what a jewel they actually have in the Incorporated village,” library Director Robyn Gilloon told The Post.“You kind of pass it every day and don’t think about it.”Gilloon said she is optimistic that the space — the only Long Island nominee out of 20 proposed in New York, including Marcus Garvey Park and the Church of St.

Edward the Martyr, both in New York City — will be a shoo-in,The library’s neoclassical exterior was the banner image used when Gov.Kathy Hochul announced her nominations in late March.Admittedly, Kathleen Curran, a decade-long Lynbrook reference librarian who spent four years on the library’s application, first learned almost all of the building’s rich nuggets during the process.The mission to bring more literacy to Lynbrook before the library began in 1913, thanks to a local women’s suffrage movement called the Friday Club.“They went from one storefront to another, and as they outgrew the space, they then decided to build this building,” Curran said.The women recruited Tallant, who specialized in designing acoustically phenomenal city theaters such as BAM, the Lyceum Theatre and the New Amsterdam Theatre.“You can still hear what he did when we have concerts here nowadays,” she said of the library with its 23-foot-high ceilin...