Buildings and Books; New Yorker, 6/2/14

Ian Frazier, New Yorker; Buildings and Books:

"Observers could be excused for finding the plan too complicated and strange to think about at first. The library’s management and board of trustees developed the C.L.P. without the public’s knowing much about it, but as the time for construction approached, and more public meetings were held, it became clear that the C.L.P. represented a major retrenchment. Anyone with experience in household austerity and the cost of modern real estate could get the picture. The main research building was like the elderly but still healthy parent; the Mid-Manhattan Library and SIBL were the grownup offspring. Pressed for cash, the family was selling the kids’ apartments and moving the kids in with the parent. To make room, some of the parent’s belongings would have to be put in storage in New Jersey. When the sacrifices that the C.L.P. would entail sank in, thanks in particular to reporting in The Nation and n+1, library users began to object loudly and persistently. The protests, the new mayor’s lack of support, and the fact that the financial projections did not add up eventually undid the C.L.P.

The biggest problem was the money...

The Schwarzman Building stands on the site that once held about half of the Croton Reservoir. Massive stones from the reservoir’s walls make up part of the building’s foundation. The reservoir stored much of the city’s water, carried by an aqueduct system for many miles from upstate. New York City has created visionary civic projects in the past; its public library is chief among them. America now has the highest level of income inequality in the developed world, and New York’s is among the worst in America. The public library has always been a great democratizer and creator of citizens, and a powerful force against inequality; it must not retrench, especially now."

The New York Public Library: The Turning Point; New York Review of Books, 10/25/12

Robert Darnton, New York Review of Books; The New York Public Library: The Turning Point: "Polemics rarely lead to happy endings. They usually produce hard feelings and a hardening of positions, rather than mutual understanding and mutually acceptable results. The loud debate about the Central Library Plan (CLP) of the New York Public Library may, however, be an exception to this rule—not that it has come to an end, but it has reached a turning point, which should satisfy both sides. Critics of the CLP were especially incensed about its provision to remove books from the seven levels of stacks under the Rose Main Reading Room and ship them to offsite storage in order to make room for a circulating library to be installed on the lower floors. They petitioned, they provoked a debate—some of it conducted in these pages [Letters, NYR, July 12]—and they were heard. After studying the problem further, a committee of the library’s trustees has made the following recommendations, which were accepted by the full board on September 19."