Cincinnati, Ohio’s current downtown public library is grand in its own right as one of the busiest branches in the country. But its predecessor, demolished in 1955, was nothing short of stunning. Built in 1874, the ‘Old Main’ library was originally intended to be an opera house, with a towering atrium that instead became home to five tiers of stacked bookshelves. These photos capture the grandeur of the library and its popularity in its own time. See gallery