NEW YORK CITY-After months of controversy, the New York Public Library on Wednesday unveiled an architectural rendering of the proposed new layout of its iconic main building. The $300-million plan for the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on 42nd Street includes some changes to the initial restoration program that likely will be welcome amendments for the many scholars, famed authors and ordinary citizens who have been loudly protesting some of the intended changes.
According to a NYPL press release, the design shows a modern, light-filled lending library with views of Bryant Park—the first circulating library in the building since the 1980s. The new library will offer the services and materials currently provided in the deteriorating Mid-Manhattan Library and the innovative Science, Industry and Business Library, both of which will be merged into the 42nd Street building.
Those two buildings—located at 455 Fifth Ave. at 40th Street, and 188 Madison Ave. at 34th Street, respectively—will be sold, with proceeds from those deals expected to help finance the renovation, according to Crain's New York Business.
At the same time, the design calls for the preservation of the landmark building's awe-inspiring public spaces—such as the Rose Main Reading Room, which will go unchanged—and the reopening of historic rooms long closed to the public. In addition, portions of the 101-year-old steel bookshelves that currently hold the core of the library's research collections—the obsolete “stacks,” which will be removed as part of the plan—will be incorporated into the new lending library, to be seen and enjoyed by the public for the first time.
Controversy that arose when the library announced its plans earlier in 2012 stemmed largely from the proposal to move most of the books in the stacks into storage in both nearby Bryant Park and in New Jersey to make room for the new circulating library. Researchers and authors feared that plan would result in long waits for the off-site books, while they were also concerned that the combination of research and public facilities would create an un-scholarly atmosphere.
In response, the library has revised its plan to create more space for books beneath the new circulating library so that 3.3 million of the research library's 4.5 million volumes will remain on site, according to The New York Times. Additionally, the new plan calls for books being stored to move to a large humidity-controlled chamber under Bryant Park. The Park is adjacent to the library. New Jersey was scratched from the plan.
The NYPL expects construction to begin in 2013, and to be completed in 2018, pending various approvals. All three buildings involved will remain open throughout construction.
The Library will submit its design to the Landmarks Preservation Commission to seek approvals for proposed modifications. The Central Library Plan calls for relatively minor work to the outside of the building, including a new emergency exit door, an updated loading dock, and replica windows. At about 100,000 square feet, the new library will be the largest indoor public space in New York, according to The Times.
“We are reasserting the library's main axis and its very special sequence of spaces, from the main Fifth Avenue entrance and the Astor Hall, through the Gottesman Hall, into the dramatic volume of the new circulating library, with views through to the park,” says architect Norman Foster, in a release. “Our design does not seek to alter the character of the building, which will remain unmistakably a library in its feel, in its details, materials, and lighting.”
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Rayna Katz
Rayna Katz is a seasoned business journalist whose extensive experience includes coverage of the lodging sector, travel and the culinary space. She was most recently content director for a business-to-business publisher, overseeing four publications. While at Meeting News, a travel trade publication, she received a Best Reporting award for a story on meeting cancellations in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
