The New York Public Library is one of the city’s most iconic landmarks, and is a must-visit for any traveler to New York City. Whether you’re looking for something to do or just want to admire the beautiful architecture, you’ll love spending some time at this magnificent building.
The main branch of the NYPL houses one of the largest libraries in the world, with a curated collection that includes Civil War maps and genealogical records, among other treasures. You’ll be sure to love exploring all that it has to offer.
The Lions
Originally dedicated in 1911, the two marble lions that guard the entrance of the Library’s flagship Fifth Avenue building have become a symbol not only of New York’s iconic library, but also of free access to information. As a tribute to the lions’ popularity and all that they stand for, NYPL adopted them as its mascots and they are trademarked, represented in the library’s logo, and featured at major occasions.
They have stood watch over countless parades, marches for social justice, protests, book drives during world wars, and the days, months and years following 9/11. They have withstood storms and vandalism (Fortitude once had to deal with a fire).
Fortitude and Patience are carved from pink Tennessee marble and rest on bases of Milford granite, the same material used for the library’s original building. They were sculpted by Edward Clark Potter and put in place in the year of the library’s dedication.
After a century of weather and pollution, the lions are in need of some conservation work. Snow, rain, wind, traffic exhaust and other elements wear down the porous Tennessee pink marble.
Despite all this, the lions have been a symbol of the strength and resilience of New Yorkers. Mayor Fiorello La Guardia gave them their names “Patience and Fortitude” during the Great Depression because he thought they embodied the qualities New Yorkers needed to endure tough times.
In honor of their 109th anniversary, the library has created a special birthday celebration for Patience and Fortitude on June 2. Kids can tune into a special lion storytime at 2pm or send a digital birthday card to the lions! They can also learn more about the lions’ history and browse curated book lists inspired by them.
The Great Hall
The main entrance to the New York Public Library (library nyc) on Fifth Avenue is flanked by two stone lions, which serve as the NYPL’s mascot. The lions are named Patience and Fortitude, the two qualities the Library feels are essential to living well in a city like ours.
This landmark Beaux Arts building was erected on the site of the Croton Reservoir, which supplied the city with drinking water until 1902. It was designed and built by a firm called Carrere and Hastings, an architectural partnership of John Carrere and Thomas Hastings. They won a design competition for the library from scores of leading architects.
One of the most striking features of this stunning room is its 52-foot-tall ceilings that are adorned with murals of billowing clouds and vibrant skies. It is a beautiful space that has been a source of inspiration for many visitors, including the film star Carrie Bradshaw.
What’s more, the Great Hall is one of the largest interior spaces not interrupted by columns in the country. And it’s a testament to the technological advances of its day–in particular, the self-supporting steel bookstacks that make up its foundation.
But it is also a reminder of the past: a time when books were more precious than they are today, and a time when you had to have a ticket to enter. Now, with plans to remove the stacks, a large part of this historic building will be lost forever.
The Library holds more than 56 million items, from rare books and manuscripts to renowned research collections. It is a place where scholars, students, bibliophiles, poets, and out-of-town visitors come together to explore their passions.
The Reading Rooms
The Library is one of New York’s most iconic destinations. Its awe-inspiring 78-foot-long Rose Main Reading Room is a Beaux-Arts masterpiece that reflects Old World architectural elegance while also offering cutting-edge technology.
The monumental space was conceived by Dr. John Shaw Billings in 1911 to maximize light and air. It was designed to be a large, uncolumned room that would support the library’s research services, which at the time included copy services and microforms. However, the space gradually deteriorated over the years as other functions encroached on reader space.
In 2013, a group of Manhattan Community Board 5 members and State Senators Brad Hoylman and Liz Kreuger began the push for the Rose Main Reading Room and the Bill Blass Public Catalog Room to be recognized as landmarks. A few months later, the rooms were reopened after a two-year renovation.
Now, you can visit the Rose Main Reading Room and the Bill Blass public catalog room and feel a sense of history as you browse through the collections. In addition to its historic grandeur, the renovated space features a reorganized open-shelf reference collection, multimedia viewing area, improved self-service copy center, expanded capacity and more.
You can also access the library’s Milstein Stacks, an environmentally optimal storage facility underneath Bryant Park that has more than 4 million items. These stacks can be accessed by researchers without an appointment, although they may need to have their library card with them.
The library also offers a 90-minute research orientation for first-time researchers. This course introduces researchers to the Library’s collection and resources, and provides general guidance on how to conduct research at the library. To schedule a research orientation or to learn more, please contact the Researcher and Reference Services Division.
The Bartos Education Center
The Bartos Education Center is a great place to visit if you’re looking for something educational. It has a visitor theater that shows you behind-the-scenes footage of the library’s collections and history. It also has a video series that showcases some of the library’s most interesting special collections, including Civil War maps, genealogical records, handwritten manuscripts of classic novels, and more.
The center is named after the Bartos family, who have given money to a number of other New York Public Library projects, including The Celeste and Armand Bartos Forum auditorium and The Celeste Bartos Education Center classroom facility. Their donation also created an endowed fund to support the education program at library nyc.
There are a number of reasons why the library decided to rebuild its stacks: it needed to cut down on maintenance costs, it wanted to make more room for books and other materials in its building, and it wanted to provide space for new technology that would enhance its collection. But there was one major concern that weighed on everyone involved: if they dismantled the stacks and replaced them with new ones, they’d lose the library’s architectural integrity.
Despite its severe financial constraints, the library was able to come up with a plan to build a new building that would replace the existing stacks inside of the Carrere and Hastings building, the iconic glass-and-steel structure that has been home to the main library since 1911. It was designed by the renowned architect Richard Meier, who won a competition to design the new building in 1997.
The plans were unveiled in 2008. As Scott Sherman wrote in The Nation, it “would not only weaken one of the world’s great libraries but mar the architectural integrity of a landmark building.” And the board of trustees reacted to the idea with anger and indignation.
The Map Room
The Map Room at library nyc, located on the first floor, is home to one of the world’s premier map collections. It includes 433,000 maps, 20,000 atlases and gazetteers, globes, and a huge array of odds and ends. The collection covers the global to the local scale, and it supports a wide range of learning and research needs.
The Library’s Map Division, founded in 1898, is dedicated to collecting cartographic material that can address the diverse learning and research needs of users worldwide. The Division currently holds 433,000 sheet maps and 20,000 books and atlases that span the 16th through the 21st centuries, from the global to the local scale.
This vast collection of cartographic materials is supported by a strong corpus of secondary resources for its use and study. This includes illustrated and annotated cartobibliographies, histories of cartography, periodicals, price guides, as well as dealer and auction catalogs.
It’s also where you’ll find the library’s extensive antiquarian atlas and map collection, which contains many important Dutch, English and French imprints from the 16th through the 19th century. It’s a treasure trove that’s sure to inspire any inquisitive mind.
Another place to visit is the Periodical Room, which features a number of life-sized murals depicting old New York. This room is one of the most beautiful spaces in the building, and it’s worth a look, especially for kids!
The Map Division is home to a large collection of topographic maps, including those from the libraries of the founders, John Jacob Astor and James Lenox. The maps were created through a process of “transforming static image files into geographically accurate historical maps” that allowed the creation of “historical base map sets for New York City.” These maps cover centuries of urban life and development, and they are an important part of the foundation of the Division’s history and collections.
