Each day until Jan. 1, The Post will take a lookat one of New York’s landmarks on the eve of thenew millennium. We’ll talk to people who work orvisit here about their lives — and their hopes forthe coming century. Today: the New York PublicLibrary.
When it opened on May 23, 1911, the New York Public Library on Fifth Avenue was designed to be an institution of greatness, something it has achieved a thousand times over during the past century.
“From the outset, it was intended to be a world-class library,” said NYPL President and CEO Paul LeClerc. “It was supposed to rival the great libraries of Europe. They even left space behind it where Bryant Park is, in case it had to double in size.”
The sprawling beaux-arts building, which cost a staggering $29 million in pre-World War I dollars, was erected atop New York’s former main water source — the Croton Reservoir.
It became the showpiece for the privately funded library system, formed just 16 years earlier, in 1895, when the John Jacob Astor and James Lenox reference libraries merged and were joined by the Samuel Jones Tilden Trust. The foundation still operates the system today.
The NYPL birthed its circulation department by absorbing the largest of the city’s then-independent systems — the 11-branch New York Free Circulating Library — in 1901.
But it really began taking on its present form when philanthropist Andrew Carnegie offered to fund 65 branches, at $5.2 million, if New York City would provide the sites and maintenance.
Between 1902 and 1914, no fewer than 37 branches sprouted up in Manhattan, The Bronx and Staten Island, still the NYPL’s territorial boundaries.
Today, with 16 million visits a year to its 85 branches, the NYPL is “the most heavily used library in the world,” LeClerc said.
Being the entry point to America’s melting pot, the New York library has also formed a special bond with the community.
“People have an emotional attachment to this library,” LeClerc said. But that works both ways.
“It has contributed directly to the economic engine of the city,” he pointed out. “It’s hard to imagine small business being as strong as it is without the Science, Industry and Business Library” division.
“And the performing arts wouldn’t be where they are. The Performing Arts [library] is like the cerebellum to the performance industry in New York.”
LeClerc places a great emphasis on the NYPL entering cyberspace. No fewer than 1,050 computer terminals are in the system, available free of charge to users, and another 500 are planned for the next few years.
And some 15.2 million hits have been recorded on the NYPL Web site (www.digital.nypl.org) this year.
The NYPL is in the process of collecting 600,000 digital images online, a project expected to be completed, in stages, by 2005.
“Libraries are still, in effect, the level playing field for the people,” said LeClerc. “If you are searching for something, chances are it’s very likely you’ll find it here.”
Click on MillenniumSnapshots at our Website, http://www.NYPost.com, toread previous entries inthis series.