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Chidsey Building | Sarasota County Visitor Information & History Center Museum

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New Use for Art Deco Building

The Chidsey Building, which once served as Sarasota's first library building, continues to inform visitors and residents as the county's Visitors Center and History Center Museum . Built in 1941, the architecture exemplifies a type of art deco design called Streamline Moderne. This style emphasizes horizontal lines and rounded edges. The use of glass bricks also characterizes the building.

By 1976, the building no longer could accommodate the library's growing collection so the city cooperated with Sarasota County to create a countywide library system with its main library on Boulevard of the Arts (now G.WIZ) and ultimately to Selby Public Library in downtown. The Chidsey Building then became the headquarters for Sarasota County Historical Resources.

When Historical Resources (now called the Sarasota County History Center) moved to 6062 Porter Way in 2007, the Chidsey Building began yet another new use as a visitor information center and history center museum.

Photo: Louis Wery

Chidsey Building

Sarasota County
Visitor Information
&
History Center Museum
701 N Tamiami Trail
Sarasota, Florida 34236 USA
Telephone 941.861.5000

Sarasota Visitors Center

Sarasota County Visitor Information and History Center Museum


Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/crobj/ / CC BY 2.0

Sarasota's First Public Library Building

Today Serves as Information & History Center

On May 12, 1941, the cornerstone was laid for Sarasota's first public library building. It was the second major structure to be built in the WPA developed Bayfront Park between present-day Sixth and 10th streets, west of North Tamiami Trail.
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American Art Deco: Modernistic Architecture and Regionalism

By Carla Breeze

Photographer and author Carla Breeze presents this survey of American Art Deco architecture with more than 500 color photos. The style flourished throughout the United States in the 1920s and 1930s and even early 1940s with many of the best examples still in use today.
American Art Deco: Architecture and Regionalism

American Art Deco: Architecture and Regionalism

by: Carla Breeze

Amazon Price: $38.32 (as of 05/26/2012)Buy Now
List Price: $60.00

While art deco architects and designers drew on European styles, they adjusted the concepts to fit the location and assert an American identity.

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More about the Chidsey Building

Located in Sarasota of the West Coast of Florida

Thomas Reed Martin | Sarasota History Alive!
Notable Martin designs still remaining include the Mediterranean Revival-style bungalows in the Burns Court Historic District, the 1938 Art Deco Municipal Auditorium, and the 1941 streamlined Moderne Chidsey Library building which now houses the Sarasota County History Museum and the Sarasota County Visitors Bureau.
Sarasota History Alive! : Sarasota County History Center Stroll | Sarasota History Alive! :
Sarasota County Visitors Center and History Center Museum - 701 North Tamiami Trail - This was built as the City of Sarasota's first and only public library building in 1941. When the library's collection outgrew its space, the city joined with the county to create a countywide library system.
Chidsey Building | Photo on Flickr
Photo of Chidsey Library, 701 North Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, Florida; Thomas Reed Martin and Frank Martin, Arch'ts., 1941. Photo by Daves Rossell, professor of architecural history at Savannah College of Art and Design.

How does your area recycle old buildings?

Sarasota demolished many of its historic buildings

Once the county's first public library building, the Chidsey Building now serves Sarasota as a visitors information center and history museum.

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Chidsey Building

Located in Sarasota on the West Coast of Florida

Hidden History of Sarasota

By Jeff LaHurd

Includes quotations from pioneer Dan McKinlay's diary, telling of lonely, cold and humiliated Scottish colonists who came here in the 1880s, and, surrounded by prairie fires, didn't know if they could survive. (Most gave up and went back to Scotland.) ... the story of Rose Wilson, who took over publication of the Sarasota Times when her husband died in 1910 and never missed an issue, boosting Sarasota as a resort haven the same year Bertha Palmer arrived from Chicago. ... And the murder of Postmaster Charles Abbe, in the 1880s, by vigilantes, and the brutal, unsolved beating death of former mayor and Siesta Key developer Harry Higel, in 1921.
Hidden History of Sarasota (FL) (American Chronicles) (American Chronicles (History Press))

Hidden History of Sarasota (FL) (American Chronicles) (American Chronicles (History Press))

by: Jeff LaHurd

Amazon Price: $14.59 (as of 05/26/2012)Buy Now
Used Price: $12.30

The thread of real estate development runs throughout the city's history, and this book. The booms of the 1920s, which created the bones of a modern Sarasota, and the 1950s, which brought subdivisions and Arvida's Bird Key, have been written about often. Less well known is the 1910s real estate boom, which saw Sarasota's population grow from 846 in 1910 to 2,015 four years later. --Harold Bubil, Herald-Tribune Columnist

Release Date: 12/31/1969

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Mostly Sunny in Sarasota & Her Islands

Located on the West Coast of Florida

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Art Deco at Auction

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Long Live Music!

Viva la Musica's mission is to inspire, educate, and entertain with passionate, quality performances of noteworthy music from diverse cultures and eras.

Click for More about Sarasota & Her Islands

Located on the West Coast of Florida USA

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