New York Public Library
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Image:Nyc-nypl.jpg The New York Public Library (NYPL), one of three public library systems serving New York City, is one of the leading libraries in the United States. The other New York public systems are those of Brooklyn and Queens.
The Public Library's main building on Fifth Avenue (GPS +40.75270 -073.98180 ) (image, right) is the crowning achievement of the Beaux-Arts architectural firm of Carrere and Hastings. Its status as one of the world's leading libraries is confirmed by its possession of (for instance) a Gutenberg Bible and a Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica.
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History
Image:New york public library 1948.jpg In the late nineteenth century, New York City had two reference libraries open to the public: the Astor Library, founded by a $400,000 bequest of John Jacob Astor (1763–1848), which had opened in 1849, and the Lenox Library, founded by James Lenox (1800–1880), a book collector, which stood on the Fifth Avenue site now occupied by the Frick Collection.
In 1886, Samuel J. Tilden (1814–1886) made a bequest of about $2.4 million to establish a library in New York City. Image:NYCPubLibrary.jpg John Bigelow (1817–1911), a New York attorney, was a trustee of the Tilden will, and formulated a plan to combine the resources of the financially-strapped Astor and Lenox libraries with the Tilden bequest to form "The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations". This entity came into being as a private foundation on May 23, 1895.
The library consolidated with The New York Free Circulating Library in February, 1901, and Andrew Carnegie donated $5.2 million to construct branch libraries, with the proviso that the City of New York fund their maintenance and operations. The New York Public Library is thus a partnership of city government with private philanthropy.
Image:NYC Public Library Research Room Jan 2006.jpg
The main Research Library (now known as the Humanities and Social Science Library) was built on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan between 40th and 42nd Streets, and was dedicated on May 23, 1911, opening the next day. The famous lions guarding the entrance were sculpted by Edward Clark Potter. They were originally named Leo Astor and Leo Lenox, in honor of the library's founders. These names were transformed into Lord Astor and Lady Lenox (although both lions are male). In the 1930s they were nicknamed "Patience" and "Fortitude" by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. He chose these names because he felt that the citizens of New York would need to possess these qualities to see themselves through the Great Depression. Patience is on the south side (the left as one faces the main entrance) and Fortitude on the north. (New Yorkers eschew such pompous names and refer to them as "Uptown" and "Downtown.")
The main reading room of the Research Library, the famous room 315, is one of the most majestic sights one may see; 78 feet (23.8 m) wide by 297 feet (90.5 m) long, with ceilings 52 feet (15.8 m) high; surrounded by open shelves, both on the main level and the balcony, which contain standard and not so standard reference works of all kinds; tall windows and chandeliers above; long tables with comfortable chairs and brass lamps; computers with access to the library collections and to the internet; docking facilities for laptops; readers comfortably at work with materials from the closed stacks, brought to their seats by the staff on request. All of this, and more, available without charge to anyone. Many notable authors have cited research in this room as seminal in their work. Many others, out of work during the Great Depression, used this resource to give themselves the equivalent of a university education.
In the 1980s the library added more than 125,000 square feet (12,000 m²) of space to its storage capacity. This expansion required a major construction project in which Bryant Park, directly west of the library, was closed to the public and excavated. The new library facilities were built below ground level. The park was then restored on top of the underground facilities and re-opened to the public.
The Humanities and Social Sciences Library on 42nd Street is only one of four libraries that comprise NYPL's Research Libraries. The others are the Schomburg Center for Black Research and Culture, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the Science Industry and Business Library. The Library for the Performing Arts and the Science Industry and Business Library also have circulating components that are administered by the NYPL's Branch Libraries system.
Branches
The NYPL maintains 80 neighborhood branch libraries and five central circulating libraries throughout The Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island. (Queens and Brooklyn have their own library systems). Neighborhood branch locations offer popular fiction, basic research materials, and recreational programs. NYPL's five central circulating libraries (The Mid-Manhattan Library, The Donnell Library Center, The Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library, the circulating collections of the Science, Industry and Business Library, and the circulating collections of the Library for the Performing Arts) are all in or near midtown Manhattan and offer a wide range of in-depth collections, programs, and services, including the renowned Picture Collection at Mid-Manhattan Library and the Media Center at Donnell.
Library in fiction
The NYPL has frequently appeared in feature films, most often as backdrop or a brief meeting place for characters. It serves as the backdrop for a central plot development in the 2002 film Spider-Man and a major location in the 2004 apocalyptic science fiction film The Day After Tomorrow. It is also featured prominently in the 1984 film Ghostbusters. In the film, a librarian in the basement reported seeing a ghost, which became violent when approached. Other films in which the library appears include Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Chapter Two (1979), Escape from New York (1981), and "Regarding Henry" (1991). In the 1978 film, The Wiz, Dorothy and Toto stumble across the Library and one of the Library Lions comes alive and joins them on their journey out of Oz. In the episode "The Day the Earth Stood Stupid" in the series Futurama, the giant brain is confronted by Fry in the library
In novels, Lynne Sharon Schwartz's The Writing on the Wall (2005), features a language researcher at NYPL grapples with her past following the September 11, 2001 attacks. Cynthia Ozick's 2004 novel Heir to the Glimmering World, set just prior to World War II, involves a refugee-scholar from Hitler's Germany researching the Karaite Jews at NYPL. In the 2003 novel Contest by Matthew Reilly the NYPL is the setting for an intergalactic gladiatorial fight that results in the building's total destruction. In 1985, novelist Jerome Badanes based his novel The Final Opus of Leon Solomon on the real-life tragedy of an impoverished scholar who stole books from the Jewish Division, only to be caught and commit suicide. In the 1984 murder mystery by Jane Smiley, Duplicate Keys, an NYPL librarian stumbles on two dead bodies, circa 1930. Donna Hill, who was herself an NYPL librarian in the 1950s, set her 1965 novel Catch a Brass Canary at an NYPL branch library. Lawrence Blochman's 1942 mystery Death Walks in Marble Halls features a murder committed using a brass spindle from a catalog drawer.
Smaller mentions of the library can be found in Stephen King's 1980 Firestarter; P. G. Wodehouse's 1919 A Damsel in Distress; B.J. Chute's 1986 The Good Woman; Isaac Bashevis Singer's posthumous Shadows on the Hudson (1998); and in Sarah Schulman's 1986 Girls, Visions and Everything. A charming, lightly fictionalized portrait of the Jewish Division's first chief, Abraham Solomon Freidus, is found in a chapter of Abraham Cahan's The Rise of David Levinsky (1917).
Website
The New York Public Library website allows for book searching, research, and online learning. The two online catalogs, LEO (which searches the circulating collections) and CATNYP (which searches the research collections), search the large collections and find research materials.
Other New York City library systems
The New York Public Library is one of three separate and independent public library systems in New York City. The other two are The Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Borough Public Library.
See also
External links
- New York Public Library
- NYPL Research Libraries
- NYPL Digital Collections
- A link to the General Research Division, with a spectacular photo of room 315
- Another link with a spectacular view of room 315; this one with an extensive gloss
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