Albert Brenner Glickman Library at USM

314 Forest Avenue

From Portland Community Squash, continue down Noyes to Forest Ave., take a right on Forest to Bedford Street and a right on Bedford. The University of Southern Maine (USM) Albert Brenner Glickman Library is on the far right corner. Its entrance is off Bedford St., and it is our first stop. Visitors are allowed into this building, and public parking is available.

The building that is now the Glickman Library operated from 1919 first as large bakery - a photo above shows the sign for “T.A. Huston & Co Bakers of Better Biscuits” - and then a plumbing supply company. Albert Brenner Glickman and his wife Judith donated $1,000,000 to add three floors and transform it into the modern seven-story academic library you see today. It opened in 1997.

Albert (“Al”) Brenner Glickman (1934-2013) was born in Portland during the height of the Great Depression. His grandfather, Joseph Brenner, was a founder of the Jewish Home for Aged, now called The Cedars (Stop E09). His mother, Mildred Brenner Glickman, was the first woman to chair a division of the Jewish Federation. She also served as a field director for the United Service Organizations in World War I.

Al’s father died in an auto accident when he was three. His widowed mother married Joe Glickman 10 years later. Al spent his teen, college, and law school years in Southern California, where he married Judith Ellis, whom he had met at UCLA. In California and out West, Al made a fortune as a commercial real estate developer, but his heart stayed in Maine. Al, Judy and their kids vacationed here each summer and returned for good to Cape Elizabeth in the 1980s. Al was a noted philanthropist and donated generously to scores of artistic, civic and educational causes across the country, particularly in Maine and California. He served on multiple boards of businesses and academic and cultural organizations. Al died at age 79 from complications of Parkinson’s Disease.

Judy Glickman (now Glickman-Lauder) is a noted humanitarian, philanthropist, and artist. Her photographs have been shown at museums as well as college and university galleries throughout Maine, the U.S., and Europe. She frequently lectures on the Holocaust, the subject of much of her photography. In 2015, Judy married Leonard Lauder (1933-2025), who was one of Al’s best friends, in what the New York Times celebrated as a true love story.