Are research appointments required to access the collection onsite?No, although we recommend that patrons contact dorotjewish@nypl.org to arrange to see materials from the collection.
dorot jewish division of the new york public library
Download Zip: https://tinurli.com/2vKCxq
You are invited to explore the collection through this guide, the collection guide, and the Library's catalog. We welcome offers of donations of cookbooks not already in the collection. Please contact us at dorotjewish@nypl.org
The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, commonly known as the Main Branch, 42nd Street Library or the New York Public Library,[b] is the flagship building in the New York Public Library system in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The branch, one of four research libraries in the library system, contains nine separate divisions. The structure contains four stories open to the public. The main entrance steps are at Fifth Avenue at its intersection with East 41st Street. As of 2015[update], the branch contains an estimated 2.5 million volumes in its stacks.[a] The building was declared a National Historic Landmark, a National Register of Historic Places site, and a New York City designated landmark in the 1960s.
The Main Branch became popular after its opening and saw 4 million annual visitors by the 1920s. It formerly contained a circulating library, though the circulating division of the Main Branch moved to the nearby Mid-Manhattan Library in 1970. Additional space for the library's stacks was constructed under adjacent Bryant Park in 1991, and the branch's Main Reading Room was restored in 1998. A major restoration from 2007 to 2011 was underwritten by a $100 million gift from philanthropist Stephen A. Schwarzman, for whom the branch was subsequently renamed. The branch underwent another expansion starting in 2018. The Main Branch has been featured in many television shows and films.
In May 1897, the New York State Legislature passed a bill allowing the site of the Croton Reservoir to be used for a public library building.[13][25] The Society of Beaux-Arts Architects hosted an architectural design competition for the library, with two rounds. The rules of the competition's first round were never published, but they were used as the basis for later design competitions.[26] Entrants submitted 88 designs,[27][28] of which 12 were selected for a semi-finalist round and six went on to a finalist round.[29][28] About a third of the designs, 29 in total, followed the same design principles outlined in Billings's original sketch. Each of the semifinalist designs were required to include specific architectural features, including limestone walls; a central delivery desk; reading rooms with large windows; and stacks illuminated by sunlight.[28] The six finalists were selected by a jury composed of library trustees and architects. The jury relaxed the requirement that the proposals adhere to a specific floor plan after McKim, Mead & White, which had received the most votes from the jury, nearly withdrew from the competition.[30] All of the finalist designs were in the Beaux-Arts style.[28]
During the 1970s, the New York Public Library as a whole experienced financial troubles,[102] which were exacerbated by the 1975 New York City fiscal crisis.[68] As a cost-cutting measure, in 1970, the library decided to close the Main Branch during Sundays and holidays.[103] The library also closed the Main Branch's science and technology division in late 1971 to save money, but private funds allowed the division to reopen in January 1972.[104] The lions in front of the Main Branch's main entrance were restored in 1975.[105] By the end of the decade, the Main Branch was in disrepair and the NYPL trustees were raising money for the research library's continued upkeep.[100][106] The NYPL system was so short on funds that the research library was only open 43 hours a week until 1979, when Time Inc. and the Grace Krieble Delmas Foundation jointly donated $750,000 to extend the branch's operating hours.[106]
Workers erected a temporary construction fence around the library's terraces in 1982.[112][113] As part of a greater renovation of Bryant Park, Laurie Olin and Davis Brody redesigned the terraces, while Hugh Hardy redesigned the kiosks within the terraces.[100][114] Several rooms were restored as part of the plan.[113] The first space to be renovated, the periodical room, was completed in 1983 with a $20 million gift from Reader's Digest editor DeWitt Wallace.[115] The exhibition room reopened in May 1984 and was renamed the Gottesman Exhibition Hall.[116][117] The Catalog Room was restored starting in 1983.[118][119] Ten million catalog cards, many of which were tattered, were replaced with photocopies that had been created over six years at a cost of $3.3 million.[119][120] In addition, room 80 was renovated into a lecture hall called the Celeste Bartos Forum in 1987.[121][122] Offices were relocated to former storage rooms on the ground level.[108] Other divisions were added to the Main Branch during the 1980s, such as the Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle in 1986,[123] and the Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs in 1987.[124] The terraces on Fifth Avenue reopened in 1988 after they were restored.[116]
Meanwhile, the library was adding 150,000 volumes to its collections annually, which could not fit within the stacks of the existing building.[116][99] In the late 1980s, the New York Public Library decided to expand the Main Branch's stacks to the west, underneath Bryant Park.[46][99] The project was originally estimated to cost $21.6 million and would be the largest expansion project in the Main Branch's history.[125] It was approved by the city's Art Commission in January 1987,[126] and construction on the stacks started in July 1988.[46] The expansion required that Bryant Park be closed to the public and then excavated, but because the park had grown dilapidated over the years, the stack-expansion project was seen as an opportunity to rebuild the park.[125] The library added more than 120,000 square feet (11,000 m2) of storage space and 84 miles (135 km) of bookshelves under Bryant Park, doubling the length of the stacks in the Main Branch.[116][99] The space could accommodate 3.2 million books and a half-million reels of microfilm.[116] The new stacks were connected to the Main Branch via a tunnel measuring 62 ft (19 m)[116] or 120 ft (37 m) long.[46] Once the underground facilities were completed, Bryant Park was completely rebuilt,[127] with 2.5 or 6 feet (0.76 or 1.83 m) of earth between the park surface and the storage facility's ceiling.[46][128] The extension was opened in September 1991 at a cost of $24 million;[46] however, it only included one of two planned levels of stacks.[129] Bryant Park was reopened in mid-1992 after a three-year renovation.[128]
Stephen A. Schwarzman donated $100 million toward the renovation and expansion of the building, and in April 2008, the library announced that the main branch building would be renamed in his honor. As a condition of the gift, Schwarzman's name would be displayed at each public entrance.[144][145] Later that year, British architect Norman Foster was chosen to design the Main Branch's renovation. To pay for the renovations, the New York Public Library was attempting to sell the Mid-Manhattan and Donnell branches, the latter of which had already found a buyer.[146] Nicolai Ouroussoff, former architecture critic for The New York Times, opined that Foster's selection was "one of a string of shrewd decisions by the library that should put our minds at ease".[147]
The Irma and Paul Milstein Division of U.S. History, Local History and Genealogy houses one of the largest publicly available genealogical collections in North America. Though the division contains many New York City-related documents, it also contains documents collected from towns, cities, counties, and states across the U.S., as well as genealogies from around the world.[182] The division acquired the holdings of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society in 2008.[183][184]
The northern and southern facades of the building are located along 42nd and 40th Streets, respectively. The northern and southern elevations were treated as side elevations, and the windows on these elevations illuminate secondary spaces inside the library.[212] Both elevations measure 11 bays wide and are nearly identical to each other.[213] Cornices run above the northern and southern elevations, connecting the primary elevations on Fifth Avenue and Bryant Park.[212] The northern side contains an entrance to the ground level, while the southern side was not built with a public entrance.[203][213] The northern entrance is at the center of that elevation and is topped by a pediment.[213]
The ground floor contains the entrance to 42nd Street.[203] Originally it contained a coat-check, circulating library, newspaper room, and children's-book room. There were also spaces for telephones, a "library-school office", and a "travelling-library office".[69] The former newspaper room in room 78 became the children's-book room, and the former children's-book room in room 81 is not open to the public.[69][203]
The New York Public Library holds one of the most significant collections of Slavic, East European and Baltic materials in the world. Founded in 1899, what became the Slavic and Baltic Division acquired great treasures when the Soviet Union sold them on the world market for hard currency in the 1920s and 1930s. The Division also was a center for scholarship and major exhibitions. In 2008, the library closed the Division and the materials were divided among other parts of the library. In the immediate aftermath of the closure, access to materials became difficult: the remaining members of the division were transferred to jobs where they did not interact with the public. Moreover, retrieving materials sometimes required language skills or special knowledge of locations the remaining staff did not necessarily possess. 2ff7e9595c