Gotham City Public Library

History

Outwardly unremarkable, the Gotham City Public Library has served as a nexus of information and education in Gotham City for many decades, and been caught in its share of conflicts between Batman and the city's various criminals. Its most famous (ex-)staffer was undoubtedly Barbara Gordon, who secretly used it as a secondary headquarters for her Batgirl activities.

The library was destroyed during the infamous Gotham earthquake, and much of its content used as kindling by the survivors of No Man's Land.^[1] After the No Man's Land had ended, Bruce Wayne personally funded the library's reconstruction.^[2]

Other Versions

Batman '66

In this version, the Gotham City Library was the place where Barbara Gordon worked as a librarian. Batman and Robin later confronted Killer Moth and three of his henchmen at the library.^[3]

Gotham

During No Man's Land, the library was taken over by the Riddler, who used the building as his headquarters for one whole year. At one point, the library was invaded by Eduardo Dorrance and James Gordon when they tried to arrest Nygma for destroying the Haven building in the Green Zone.^[4] A few weeks later, the Gotham City Public Library also became the scene of a violent confrontation between Penguin and the Ventriloquist.^[5]

Notes

In the 1966 Batman TV series establishing shots of the Gotham City Public Library were done with stock footage of the New York Public Library Main Branch.
- In the show's unaired Batgirl demo reel, the establishing shot was instead done with footage of the Los Angeles Post Office and Court House (now the United States Court House (Los Angeles)).

Trivia

No trivia.

Links and References

[1] Legends of the Dark Knight #116

[2] Detective Comics #743

[3] Batgirl (Short)

[4] Pena Dura

[5] Nothing's Shocking

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