Climb the steps between “Patience” and “Fortitude,” and you’ll find yourself in one of the most famous, important, and comprehensive libraries in the world.
ATALE OF TWO LIBRARIES
In the late 19th century, New York was the second-largest city in the world (London was first), and many people realized that soon it would be a cultural capital, too. One of them was former New York governor Samuel J. Tilden, who left a $2.4 million trust to “establish and maintain a free library and reading room in the city of New York.” The city already had two major libraries—the Astor and the Lenox—but both were research libraries, both were having financial difficulties, and only the Astor was open to the public. Seeing an opportunity, Tilden’s trustees came up with a plan to combine the Astor and Lenox Libraries and the Tilden Trust to form what would become the New York Public Library (NYPL, or “nipple” to devoted users). The plan was finalized on May 23, 1895, and Dr. John Shaw Billings, an eminent librarian and surgeon, became the new director.
HOUSE OF BOOKS
Billings was a visionary too—he wanted a spectacular building that could house the riches of the Astor and Lenox Libraries, while offering comfortable facilities for scholars and ordinary readers alike. The chosen site was the former Croton Reservoir, a two-block area on Fifth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets that had once held most of the freshwater used in the city. The new library would have seven floors, a huge reading room, and 30,000 reference books. It would also have the world’s fastest book-to-user delivery system: A patron would send a call slip to the “closed stacks,” or storage rooms, downstairs via a pneumatic tube, and in a matter of minutes, the book would be sent up to the reading room via dumbwaiters.
For two years, 500 workers dismantled the old reservoir and prepared the site. Construction finally began on May 1902, and the official dedication took place on May 23, 1911. Total cost: $9 million. On May 24, when the library first opened its doors, more than 30,000 New Yorkers rushed in.
Archie Bunker’s favorite baseball team: the New York Mets.
Over the years, NYPL has racked up an impressive list of stats. Here are some of the most important.
• In-person visits per year: 18 million
• Online visits per year: 24 million
• Only boroughs not included in the NYPL system: Brooklyn and Queens. (They have their own independent library systems.)
• Total items in the branch and research libraries: 51.6 million
• Items in the Photography Collection: 500,000
• Items in the Map Division: 433,000 sheet maps, and 20,000 books and atlases published between the 15th and 21st centuries
• Historic menus: 26,000
• Historic U.S. postcards: more than 100,000
• Categories the online and phone reference system ASK NYPL will not answer questions about: crosswords or contests, children’s homework, and philosophical speculation
GIMME SHELTER
Anyone who has visited a branch library on a sweltering day (or a frigid one) knows that the NYPL is a haven. Libraries, as former head of NYPL Paul LeClerc said in 2008, “are the only indoor communal spaces left in New York.” People with no air conditioning cool off there; homeless men and women warm up. But there are rules. Anyone who visits a NYPL branch is expected to adhere to the following:
• You may not wash your clothes or bathe in the restrooms.
• No loud talking on your cell phone.
• Don’t bring knives, guns, or any other weapons to the library.
• No obscene gestures, abusive language, or lewd behavior.
• No shopping carts, bicycles, or scooters.
• No napping in the library or sleeping in the entryway.
• No dropping your kid at the library and forgetting to pick her up.
• No hacking or using the Internet for any illegal activity.
• You must wear clothes and shoes, and you can’t smell bad.
The building used for the exterior shots of Elaine’s workplace on Seinfeld is 600 Madison Avenue in Manhattan, between 57th and 58th Street.