New York Public Library Unveils $317 Million Master Plan For 42nd Street (Schwarzman) Building

From NYPL:

The New York Public Library has unveiled a Master Plan for its iconic Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, one of the nation’s leading research libraries, which for over a century has stood as a symbol of open and free access to information and opportunity.

The $317 million plan for the historic Midtown building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street was shared at the Library’s Board of Trustees meeting this evening, and calls for an approximate 20% increase in public space for research, exhibitions, and educational programs.

The Master Plan was developed by Dutch architecture firm and experts on library design Mecanoo, led by Francine Houben, and Beyer Blinder Belle, a New York City-based firm known for its work on historic buildings, led by Elizabeth Leber. Mecanoo and Beyer Blinder Belle are also leading the renovation of Mid-Manhattan Library, the Library’s largest circulating branch, located across Fifth Avenue. It is scheduled to reopen as the completely renovated Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library in early 2020.
“For over a century, the Schwarzman Building has been a beacon of open access to information and a tireless preservationist of the world’s knowledge,” said New York Public Library President Tony Marx. “We have a responsibility to preserve its architectural wonder and its role as an important civic space, while also preparing it for the future, and another century of best serving the public. We believe this plan does just that.”

Work Plan
The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building Master Plan calls for future investment beginning in 2018 and continuing through 2021. Work will be done in two phases utilizing private funds. Specific elements include:

• The transformation of former staff or storage spaces into public spaces for research, exhibitions, and educational programs

• The transformation of long-underutilized, historic spaces for research and programs, including the new Lenox and Astor Room

• A much-needed entrance on 40th Street with a plaza and new elevator bank to ease congestion throughout the building

• An improved patron experience with new bathrooms and improved and modernized infrastructure, including a café and expanded shop

• A new Center for Research and Learning that will introduce high school and university students to the array of collections and uses of the research library

• A new permanent but rotating exhibition of NYPL treasures in the library’s Gottesman Hall

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These elements will prepare the library for the future while maintaining the building’s architectural integrity and complementing existing historic spaces such as the landmarked Rose Main Reading Room, the Maps, Periodicals, and Genealogy reading rooms, and Astor Hall.

Central Stacks
While the Master Plan [our emphasis] does not include a definitive plan for the central stacks—seven floors of shelving built with the library in 1911—the Library also announced at the Board meeting that it has commissioned Mecanoo and Beyer Blinder Belle to do a study examining possibilities for the 175,000-square-foot space.
The stacks are currently housing circulating books while Mid-Manhattan Library is closed for renovation, but are no longer fit to hold research materials as originally intended for preservation reasons: the space lets in natural light and does not meet acceptable standards for temperature, humidity, and fire safety.
The purpose of the study is to evaluate the current state of the stacks, and then—with input from a broad range of stakeholders, including staff, architects, and a group of non-Library advisors and planners—to identify a series of potential options for the space. Once those possible scenarios are identified, the public will have the opportunity to provide feedback.

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All of this work is a continuation of a series of improvements and investments that the Library has already undertaken at the Schwarzman Building since 2006. Approximately $144 million in funding has been invested in the building for projects including:

• The build-out of a second level of state-of-the-art underground storage for research materials (the Milstein Research Stacks), and the barcoding of all research materials that had been located in the central stacks

• The restoration of two historic fountains on the plaza

• The restoration of the Rose Main Reading Room ceilings and the Bill Blass Public Catalog Room ceiling and murals. Both of these spaces were landmarked this year.

• A new, modern, more efficient book delivery system to bring materials from underground storage to the Rose Main Reading Room

• Essential infrastructure improvements, such as a new fire alarm system

Media Coverage
From The New York Times:
The master plan is the latest, and close to final, stage of what the library calls its “pivot” away from its earlier, controversial Central Library Plan. That proposal, which would have involved selling the Mid-Manhattan branch across Fifth Avenue and constructing a new circulating library (designed by the British architect Norman Foster) inside the Schwarzman building, drew substantial criticism and was abandoned in 2014.
Read the Complete Article
See Also: From May 7, 2014: Roundup: New York Public Ends Plan to Renovate 42nd Street Building (Central Library Plan)
Includes coverage back to 2012.
See Also: New York Public Library Receives $55 Million Gift to Renovate Mid-Manhattan Library, 2nd Largest Gift in History of NYPL (September 13. 2017)

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Funding, Libraries, Maps, News, Open Access, Preservation, Public Libraries, Roundup