L&B is back! Sterling Memorial Library’s grand reading room reopens

After a four-year closure, the Linonia and Brothers (L&B) Room reopened this week—unveiling a meticulous renovation that has restored the room to its original grandeur and added many modern amenities for today’s students.

Designed in the late 1920s as a “sanctuary” for students, where they could study or just relax, the restored room is appointed with the traditional signature-green couches—in new fabrics—and with a scattering of newly upholstered brown-leather armchairs. Occupants will benefit from the 21st-century lighting, new climate control and ventilation systems, and numerous electrical outlets for computers and other devices. New area rugs replace the wall-to-wall carpeting, and their woven decorative patterns mirror the ornamentation in the now immaculate white-plaster ceiling. 

The Berg Family Foyer houses a collection of books about Yale and New Haven history, and the shelves lining the walls and alcoves are filled with contemporary fiction and nonfiction to encourage reading for pleasure—in keeping with architect James Gamble Rogers’s original vision for the use of the room.

Read more about the restoration in the Yale News story by Mike Cummings.

—Deborah Cannarella

Photo by Dan Renzetti