The New York Public Library, glass negative from 1908 depicting horse carriages and trolleys. Late stage construction: trademark lions not yet installed. Image: Library of Congress
Technically speaking, the term “New York Public Library” refers to the four research libraries and eighty-seven branch libraries—forty-four in Manhattan alone—that comprise the city’s vast and enviable library system. But New Yorkers stubbornly use the term to mean the central library on Fifth Avenue between 40th and 42nd streets, refusing to call it the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, after the donor who gave $100 million in 2008. It is that building that is the subject of a furiously ambitious and furiously contentious renovation known as the Central Library Plan (CLP).
The clphas a great many moving parts. First, the library proposes to sell two of its nearby buildings: the aging Mid-Manhattan Library across from the Schwarzman building on Fifth Avenue and the underused Science, Industry & Business Library at Madison Avenue and 34th Street (previously the B. Altman building). The proceeds from these two sales are expected to total $210 million. With that sum, and another $150 million promised by the city, the Schwarzman building will be radically transformed. It will absorb the Mid-Manhattan Library, which will move into the space now occupied by the seven stories of steel book stacks directly beneath the main reading room. These stacks are to be removed along with the three million volumes they hold. A portion will find a
