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May 17, 2005
The New York Public Library
After a picnic in Bryant Park on Sunday we ended up at the main branch of the New York Public Library on a whim (well, actually, we were looking for a bathroom and pretended to be interested in the Before Victoria exhibit). I had tried to do research there once when I was writing my thesis at NYU but wasn't allowed in with my backpack, so it's one of those New York institutions -- like the top of the Empire State Building -- that I have never seen.
It is gorgeous. Everything is made of marble or mahogany and it has a very quaint, Ivy League feel. Most of the signs look like this (with engraved letters filled in with gold paint). The doorways and ceilings are elaborately decorated. Even the fire hoses are beautiful. The Rose Reading Room wasn't exactly what I expected -- I had imagined less wood and more blue in the ceiling, but if anything it was more impressive. I love old, traditional roman architecture and I especially love old libraries. My grandmother had a collection of books from around 1875 -- all of Dickens, all of Jane Austen, etc. -- that filled up a wall of dark shelves in her living room. It always made me want to grab one of the books and start reading in an armchair nearby.
The logistics of the NYPL are still a bit of a mystery to me. There are flat screen terminals for CATNYP everywhere, and I think you can request to see a given book from downstairs and read it upstairs, but the architecture made it all a bit intimidating. We saw some fantastic Charles Addams sketches upstairs in a hallway, though, and took a look at a Gutenburg bible and a globe from 1510 that was missing North America. Oh, and the bathrooms were nice, too. :)
Posted by csageday at May 17, 2005 01:44 AM