East Chicago is working on turning a historic building into a center for the arts. The Harbor area Carnegie Library at 136^th and Grand Boulevard is being re-purposed as the Carnegie Arts Center. The library, which closed thirty-years ago, was built a-hundred years ago thanks to a donation by steel industrialist Andrew Carnegie. Interior and exterior work is planned on the red brick structure, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. There were actually two Carnegie libraries in East Chicago – the other one is the Pastrick branch on the southwest side of the city at Baring and Chicago Avenues.
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