53rd Street Library

The 53rd Street Library is a branch of the New York Public Library at 18 West 53rd Street, just west of Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building is located on the south side of 53rd Street, across from the Museum of Modern Art, and adjacent to 660 Fifth Avenue to the east. The library occupies the ground story and two basement levels of a 46-story hotel and residential building.

It opened in 2016 as a replacement for the Donnell Library Center, which occupied a building at 20 West 53rd Street. The Donnell Library Center operated from 1955 until 2008, when it was replaced by the current 46-story building.

The Donnell Library Center was a branch of the New York Public Library at 20 West 53rd Street. The library opened in 1955 and cost $2.5 million, including the books. It is named for Ezekial J. Donnell (1822–1896), a cotton merchant who was an early library patron.¹ The five-story library, two blocks north of Rockefeller Center, was located across 53rd Street from the Museum of Modern Art.² It had 300,000 volumes in its collection at the time of closure in 2008.³

Orient-Express Hotels Ltd., which owns the 21 Club directly south of the library on 52nd Street, bought the library for $59 million in 2007.⁴ That November, Orient-Express announced an agreement to raze the library and replace it with an 11-story hotel. At that time, the library was unable to afford the expense of needed repairs to its elevator and air conditioning systems.⁵ The World Languages Collection moved to the Mid-Manhattan Library on 40th Street.⁶⁷ Most of the library closed the week of May 30, 2008, except for the circulating collection, which shuttered that August.³ The hotel chain was supposed to finalize its purchase in November 2008, upon the payment of the full amount, but later negotiated to delay its acquisition to mid-2009; the chain later defaulted on payments.⁸

In February 2009, after the 2008 financial crisis, Orient Express backed out.⁹ The plans were revived that July.⁸ In March 2011, Orient-Express Hotels sold its purchase contract to Tribeca Associates and Starwood Capital for $67.4 million.²¹⁰¹¹ The purchase was completed that June.¹² In October 2011, demolition began on the building, which was to be replaced with a 46-story, $400 million hotel/condo complex with a library. Originally supposed to open by June 30, 2014,¹¹ it opened in March 2015 without a library.¹³ It was planned to be the flagship of the new Baccarat Hotels and Resorts luxury brand.¹⁴ The hotel was sold to Chinese insurer Sunshine Insurance Group for $230 million in February 2015;¹⁵¹⁶ this deal covered only the 114 hotel rooms on the lower floors of the building.¹⁷

The formal design by Enrique Norten of TEN Arquitectos of the new library was unveiled in May 2013.¹⁸¹⁹ NYPL president Anthony Marx said at the time that the branch would be "not only beautiful, but designed with flexibility to maximize public space, and serve all members of the community for decades to come".¹⁹ The new library opened June 27, 2016.²⁰ The buildout of the library space cost $23 million, about the same amount as one of the condominiums in the new building.²¹ The World Languages collection was not restored to the new library.²²

Its exterior was clad in Indiana Limestone. It was designed by Edgar I. Williams and Aymar Embury II.¹ The formal name carved in the limestone above the entrance was "The Donnell Free Circulation Library and Reading Room." The library was famous for housing the collection of the original Winnie the Pooh dolls behind bulletproof glass in a display in the Children's Reading Room.

The branch also had the largest New York Public Library circulating collection of materials in languages other than English.²³ It also featured the largest collection in the library system of magazines, hardcover, paperback and recorded books for seventh through twelfth grades in the balcony Nathan Straus Young Adult Center.²⁴ The auditorium in the basement offered concerts and other cultural events.

The new library is 28,000 square feet (2,600 m²), as opposed to the original 97,000-square-foot (9,000 m²) space, on part of the main floor and two lower floors.²⁵¹⁸ A two-story glass facade overlooks the interior. Much of the main floor space is a massive airy staircase with 11 "bleacher steps" where people can sit and congregate. There are 11 bleachers descending a distance of 17 feet (5.2 m), facing a 20-by-9-foot (6.1 by 2.7 m) screen below the windows at the bottom. The rest of the main floor space is a laptop bar with 10 stools. The two lower floors are underground and include a 11,000-square-foot (1,000 m²) reading room, where the 20,000-volume circulating collection is located. The second basement has the children's reading room, directly under the bleachers, with a slanted ceiling.²⁶ The new library has a 141-seat auditorium (smaller than the old) and a technology hub.¹⁸¹⁹ When opened, the technology hub had 68 computers.²⁶

Critics spoke highly of the new design but disapproved of the smaller size.²⁷ David W. Dunlap wrote for The New York Times: "Every time you think there must be no library left, a new space opens up."²⁶

In the 1940s Pooh author A. A. Milne donated the dolls to the American publisher E. P. Dutton. The dolls were then donated to the library in 1988. In 1998 British Member of Parliament Gwyneth Dunwoody urged that the dolls be returned to the British Parliament.

Mayor Rudy Giuliani came to their defense. The mayor, after visiting the library, and holding the bear with a group of children proclaimed in a "leaked" conversation that the bear told him "I want everyone in Britain and America to know that we're very, very happy here in New York City" and that it had also lauded the city's drop in crime and thought New York "capital of the world."²⁸

Congresswoman Nita M. Lowey said "The Brits have their head in a honey jar if they think they are taking Pooh out of New York City." Mike McCurry, spokesman for Bill Clinton said "As the President indicated to some of us, the notion that the United States would lose Winnie is utterly unbearable."²⁸

According to the New York Public Library's web site, the dolls were relocated to "grand new quarters in the History and Social Science Library" at the Main Branch, where they were shown in the Children's Room.²⁹