Little Bytes of...the New York Public Library

--Three estates combined to form the New York Public Library, founded in 1895.  Its main building opened one hundred years ago, on May 23, 1911.  SAMUEL TILDEN, lawyer, governor, and almost president (in an election that wasn't decided until three days before the inauguration!), left $2 million and 15,000 books.  (It would have been $4 million, but some greedy relatives contested the will.)  The original name of the New York Public Library was the "Tilden Trust Library."  JOHN JACOB ASTOR had been persuaded earlier in the century by Joseph Cogswell to establish one of New York's first public libraries.  Astor donated $400,000 and the plot of land on Lafayette Street for the library that opened in 1853.  The estate of scholar and bibliophile, JAMES LENOX, whose own library opened on Fifth Avenue in the 1870's, was responsible for $505,000 and 85,000 books including the first Gutenberg Bible brought to the New World.

--The young firm of Carrere and Hastings won the competition to design what would become one of the city's best loved buildings.  Carrere and Hastings also gave New York the magnificent Standard Oil Building at 26 Broadway, the grand entrance to the Manhattan Bridge at the end of Canal, the Lunt-Fontanne theater on 46th Street, and the Frick Mansion on Fifth Avenue (where the Lenox Library once stood).     

--The library building (now named the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building thanks to a $100 million gift) was originally built for $9 million ($210 million today). 

--The remarkable reading room, one of the largest rooms without supporting beams in the country, is 297' long, 78' wide, and 51' high.

--The two lions, modeled by Edward Clark Potter (who also did the lions at the Morgan Library) and sculpted by the Piccirilli Brothers, were originally named Leo Astor and Leo Lenox but were renamed Patience and Fortitude by Mayor LaGuardia who claimed these were the two characteristics needed for a New Yorker to survive the Great Depression.

--The New York Public Library has been featured in Ghostbusters, The Adjustment Bureau, The Day After Tomorrow, Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Wiz, Network, Regarding Henry, Sex and the City, and Spiderman.

--Besides the Gutenberg Bible mentioned above, other treasures among the Library's holdings include the first full folio of Shakespeare's work (1623), the 1640 Bay Psalm Book (the first book printed in English in America), Malcolm X's briefcase, S.J. Perlman's typewriter, the walking stick Virginia Woolf took to the River Ouse, the only known copy of the original folio edition of Columbus' discoveries, Charlotte Bronte's pencil, Jack Kerouac's reading glasses, a lock of Mary Shelley's hair, the writing desk of Charles Dickens as well as a letter opener he made from his cat's paw, and the original stuffed animals A.A. Milne bought from Harrods in the 1920's that inspired the Winnie the Pooh stories (pictured).

Comments

[Doug]

Thanks, Robert. Always interesting, always informative, and I always learn new stuff.

[Robert]

Doug, Do you have anything to add?? I want to start turning these "Little Bytes of..." segments into interactive posts.

[hire web developer]

Love to come across a post defining New York Public Library. Really inspiring. Great job Robert.