University Library with Reported Third-Floor Activity
5151 State University Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90032
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Cal State LA is a public university. The library is accessible during normal operating hours. No admission fee for visiting.
Access
Wheelchair OK
University campus with paved pathways. Library has elevator access.
Equipment
Photos OK
California State University System · JFK Memorial
The John F. Kennedy Memorial Library at California State University, Los Angeles is the primary research library for the university, located at 5151 State University Drive in the El Sereno district of Los Angeles. The library complex consists of two connected buildings: the original Palmer Wing, constructed in 1958 as the campus's first library, and the JFK Memorial Library North Wing, constructed in 1969 in the wake of President Kennedy's assassination and dedicated in his memory. The Palmer building is an 85,000 square-foot, four-story Post-War concrete structure with aluminum ribbon windows and brick and stucco facades. The 1969 JFK Memorial wing is a nearly 250,000 square-foot, four-story concrete rectangle on an irregularly shaped plinth, with two below-grade basement levels housing stacks, archives, and mechanical systems.
The library has undergone structural upgrades in the 1990s and 2015, and a Perkins Eastman master plan is guiding ongoing modernization of the combined facility. Cal State LA itself was founded in 1947 and grew rapidly through the 1950s and 1960s as part of the California State Colleges expansion, with the library complex serving as the academic center of a campus now enrolling more than 27,000 students. The third floor of the JFK wing has functioned over the years as periodicals, reference, and study space, with the deep concrete bays and limited natural light typical of late-1960s academic library architecture.
Sources
The Shadowlands Haunted Places Index reports unspecified strange activity on the third floor of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library at Cal State LA. No named witness, dated incident, campus security record, or independent paranormal investigation has been located to corroborate the entry, and Cal State LA's own published library history makes no reference to paranormal activity.
Local tradition among students references the third-floor stacks of the 1969 building as a site where solo study at night produces an unusual feeling of being watched, consistent with the broader pattern of late-modernist concrete library buildings — deep floor plates, recessed study carrels, and minimal natural light — generating environmental conditions that prompt such reports. Without specific documented incidents, the JFK Memorial Library entry remains an artifact of the Shadowlands aggregator era of haunted-location cataloging.
The John F. Kennedy Memorial Library at Cal State LA is the university's primary research library, open to students, faculty, and the public during operating hours. The third floor is where anomalous activity has been reported, without further detail in available sources. This is a functioning academic library; visitor expectations should reflect that context.
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