John M. Carrère

But we have further names to commemorate to our loss. It seems but as yesterday that the tragic death of John Merven Carrère brought sudden grief to his many friends and a quick recognition of the loss sustained by his profession and the whole community. His life had been a progressive success, earned and achieved by talent, unstinted labor, professional tact and urbanity, which came straight from the good heart within, and finally by an adaptive breadth of mind capable of using to the best advantage the opportunities coming to his firm.

Carrère and his partner, Thomas Hastings, were friends almost from their youth; both studied in the Beaux Arts, and then gained further skill in that architectural training-ship, the house of McKim, Mead & White. The partnership was formed in 1884, and before long their hands and minds were busy with notable work of a public or scholastic purpose, or for private clients. In 1897, the New York Public Library was given to them, on competition; and soon after they were entrusted with impressive changes connected with the Houses of Congress in Washington. Henceforth, Carrère’s abilities were employed upon the architectural improvement of cities, and the problems entailed by their rapid growth. His death came as a blow to every one occupied with this tremendous question. To us in New York his name is forever affixed to that monumental building which stands at last completed within a block of our own doors. It was opened on the morning of his funeral in order that he might be honored there by his friends, and by a mourning multitude of those who at some time in some way had been connected with this capable, large-hearted man and his work.

Henry Osborn Taylor
1912 Century Association Yearbook