Stavros Niarchos Foundation Gives $55 Million to a Mid-Manhattan Library
Last year, the New York Public Library released plans for a total renovation of its Mid-Manhattan branch, the workhorse circulating library that has long been the ungainly stepsibling to the magnificent Beaux-Arts building across Fifth Avenue that houses its world-class research collection.
The work began this summer. And now the library has secured the final $55 million in private money needed to pay for that makeover, which will also come with a new name.
The donation, which the library announced on Wednesday, is from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and is the second largest single gift in its history, after the $100 million the financier Stephen A. Schwarzman gave in 2008. (The flagship building was renamed in his honor.) Together with $151 million from a longstanding city commitment, it will cover the cost of the new branch at 40th Street, which will reopen in early 2020 as the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library. . .