PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE WALTER P. REUTHER
LIBRARY, ARCHIVES OF LABOR AND URBAN AFFAIRS,
WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY.
PHOTO BY TIMOTHY GRIFFIN
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE BURTON HISTORICAL COLLECTION,
DETROIT PUBLIC LIBRARY
individual sections, such as the Children’s
Room, Fine Arts Room and the Reference
Room.
A timeline puts the different stages of
enhancements into perspective, and the
narrative calls attention to the many nota-
ble people making the library the impres-
sive structure it became. Steel magnate
Andrew Carnegie offered a large donation
to the Early Italian Renaissance-style gem
created by architect Cass Gilbert, famous
for skyscrapers and museums. Completed in
1921, an addition was finished in 1963.
“I learned about a Jewish metal worker,
Samuel Yellin, whose gate welcomes visi-
tors into the Fine Arts Room,” says Cohn, a
PHOTO BY SAM SKLAR
CLOCKWISE:
Photo of Matthew Tukel
surrounded by the
classic structure. In this
1921 aerial view of the
library upon completion,
the DIA was unfinished
and the campus of what
would be Wayne State
University was primarily
a residential community.
Young adults and
children read in the
Children’s Room.
Authors Patrice Rafail
Merritt (left) and Barbara
Madgy Cohn.
member of Congregation Shaarey Zedek.
Yellin, who was born in Poland and immi-
grated to the United States in 1906, studied
at the Philadelphia Museum of Industrial
Art, the book explains. He opened Samuel
Yellin Metalworkers in Pennsylvania in 1909,
and it is still in operation. The book has
pictures of the gate as well as its decorative
details, such as a closed book with a lamp
adorned with sunflowers.
Cohn and Merritt forged a strong col-
laborative effort putting the book together.
For each of them, this was their first book
project.
“Patrice and I would meet once a week,
for 10 hours over many weeks, in my house,”
says Cohn, who grew up in Detroit and
Southfield and lives in West Bloomfield.
“We would go through thousands of [new
and historic] photos because lots of photog-
raphers submitted their pictures.” Among
those included are both local and national
artists, including Mary Chase Perry Stratton
( founder of Detroit’s Pewabic pottery), Geri
Melphers and John Stephens Coppin.
The youngest photographer, Sam Sklar,
has given a modern touch to the visuals.
One Sklar image captures a young man,
Matthew Tukel, using his cell phone while
surrounded by the classic structure.
“Matt, who is a close friend, knows
Barbara Cohn, and he told her about my
work as a freelance photographer,” explains
Sklar, who grew up attending Congregation
Shaarey Zedek and just graduated Babson
College in Massachusetts.
“Matt studies at the library, and I brought
my camera as he showed me the building.
Barbara wanted a millennial perspective
among pictures I took. I’ve seen the book,
and I’m so proud to have my photos in it.”
Many images focus on details that might
not be readily apparent from a distance.
For instance, photographer Martin Vecchio
has captured a depiction of King Solomon
as Wisdom Instructing Statesmanship,
which was copied from a depiction by Paolo
Veronese, an Italian Renaissance painter;
the local work adorns the ceiling of the
Civics Room.
“Since I started working on the book,
I’ve learned what this library means to so
many different people,” Cohn says. “We’re so
proud that it is a true community book and
that the people involved in its development
donated their time and talents so that all
proceeds go directly to the Detroit Public
Library Friends Foundation.”
The book pays beautiful tribute to one of
the city’s most impressive structures. As the
authors wrote in the book’s introduction,
one of their goals was “to share with the
world the beauty and elegance of a grand
building in a great city that, even through
the most difficult times, has sustained
one of the most maginificent neo-classical
buildings in the country.” •
jn
June 1 • 2017
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