NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Thursday, April 10, 2014, 4:00 AM
Mayor de Blasio must tune out increasingly frantic calls by many of his allies and back the New York Public Library’s brilliant plan to transform its main 42nd St. branch.
For decades, the building behind the two lions has been crying out for a revival that reconnects it to everyday New Yorkers while continuing to serve researchers. The NYPL struck upon the smartest way to do exactly that.
Yet a letter to the mayor signed by the Rev. Al Sharpton, Susan Sarandon and 12 others, including the heads of some of the city’s big unions, claims imminent harm to “ordinary New Yorkers” and benefit to “luxury real estate developers.” They claim the plan will “cost jobs.” Nonsense.
Library head Tony Marx would wisely have the NYPL close the overcrowded and lousy Mid-Manhattan Library across the street and the virtually deserted Science, Industry and Business Library in the old B. Altman Building on Fifth and 34th St., and sell the buildings that house them to pay for a historic renovation of the main branch.
That vision would bring into a single space — one of the city’s grandest — a spectacular new circulating branch, with gorgeous views of Bryant Park, sitting beside world-class research facilities, including a 5 million-book collection that would remain immediately accessible to scholars and all comers who share love of the word.
As the internet rapidly changes how New Yorkers use our libraries, the need to evolve, or die, is urgent. De Blasio penciled in $ 150 million for the NYPL’s transformation in a financial plan shortly after taking office, but has yet to lock that in.
He must. This one’s an open-and-shut case.
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