While Announcing Main Branch Renovations, NYPL Notes Mid-Manhattan Library to Be Renamed for Stavros Niarchos Foundation
At a Board of Trustees meeting Wednesday evening, The New York Public Library revealed the $317 million master plan that will guide the renovation of the iconic Stephen A. Schwarzman Building on Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. The plan was developed by Dutch architecture firm Mecanoo and the NYC-based Beyer Blinder Belle. The historic Midtown Beaux-Arts building is home to one of the nation’s leading research libraries as well as historic spaces like the landmarked Rose Main Reading Room, the Maps, Periodicals, and Genealogy reading rooms, and Astor Hall.
The plan will include the transformation of former staff or storage spaces into public spaces for research, exhibitions, and educational programs with 20 percent more public space being added to the building; the transformation of long-underutilized, historic spaces for research and programs, including the new Lenox and Astor Rooms; a 40th Street entrance with a plaza and new elevator bank to ease congestion; an improved visitor experience including new bathrooms 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; and a new permanent but rotating exhibition of NYPL treasures in the library’s Gottesman Hall...