Great minds, gs.... Speaking of buildings that at one time held the Los Angeles Public Library (as the Metropolitan Building did from 1914 to 1926), here are a couple of shots of the Homer Laughlin Building, 315-17 S. Broadway, which housed the library from 1906 to 1908 (and which is now better known as the home of Grand Central Market):
CSULB Library
http://www.csulb.edu/~odinthor/Laughl.jpg
LAPL
http://jpg1.lapl.org/00078/00078926.jpg
A shot of the library's outdoor reading room. Not sure what possessed the photographer to take
the picture of what is quintessentially a Southern California idea on what appears to be a rainy day....
I have Homer Laughlin on my mind today--I bought some dinner plates at Fishs Eddy here in NY last week, and only just today noticed that they were produced by the Homer Laughlin China Company. (Fiesta Ware is among its product lines.) I didn't know it was still in existence, and I mistakenly thought that it was always a Los Angeles company. Turns out that it never was an L.A. company--Homer sold his interest in the Ohio business in 1897 and only then moved to L.A. and began investing in real estate.