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Watch CSNPYL President Mathew Zadrozny’s gripping testimony (really!) at the New York City Council arguing that many libraries, including 42nd Street, should be kept open on Sundays and that the New York Public Library has the resources to do so:

Testimony of Matthew Mateusz Zadrozny
President, Committee to Save the New York Public Library (saveNYPL.org)

New York City Council
Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries, and International Intergroup Relations
Tuesday, May 21, 2024

Chair Rivera, Councilmember Brannan, Councilmember Brewer, fellow New Yorkers:

Good afternoon, my name is Matthew Zadrozny. I am the president of saveNYPL.org, an all-volunteer watchdog group. In 2014 we saved the great 42nd Street Library and the Mid-Manhattan Library on 40th & 5th.

Since November, NYC libraries have been closed on Sundays, depriving one million school kids of a safe space to study and hang, and kneecapping millions of ambitious adults. An incalculable social cost and economic loss.

The decision to keep ALL libraries closed on Sundays is political theater, and a scandal. Especially at the NYPL, which recently spent hundreds of millions on a new patio and catering elevator.

When the city built the 42nd Street Library, its contract with the NYPL stipulated that “one or more reading rooms […] be open on week days, holidays included, from 9.00 a.m. to 9.00 p.m., and on Sundays from 1.00 to 9.00 p.m.” †

When NYPL president Tony Marx and former chair Evan Chesler were growing up, in Inwood and Allerton, the 42nd Street Library was open more than 80 hours per week.

And yet, today, as service at 42nd Street has dwindled to just 52 hours per week, NYPL’s finances have seldom looked better.

The NYPL endowment is 1.5 billion dollars, a record.

And the NYPL board has a combined net worth in excess of 90 billion dollars.

This means that NYPL trustees alone could fund the entire NYPL system for two hundred and forty years.

To quote Tony Marx: “We’re not in the 1970s here.”

In L.A., where NYPL trustee Ethan Hawke works, the central library is open 60 hours a week and on Sundays.

In Boston, backyard of trustees Henry Louis Gates Jr and Robert Darnton, the central library is open 66 hours per week and on Sundays.

In Paris, where trustee Hubert Joly studied, libraries are open every day, including Sundays.

In Seoul, home of trustee Michael Kim, the central library is open 78 hours per week, and on Sundays.

In Washington, where Senator Schumer works, the MLK library is open 66 hours a week, and on Sundays.

And yet, in our own city, home to more than 100 billionaires — the most of any city on earth — libraries are closed on Sundays.

“Sorry about tomorrow’s test, kid. Have you tried Yonkers, Nassau, or Hoboken? Their libraries are open.”

So, what’s it going to be, New York? Are we still, in fact, “the state of opportunity”?

Or are we a second rate city, in a second rate state, with a second rate library, high on our own supply?

It’s up to you, New York.

Today, the library chiefs came before you, once more, with pockets out-turned.

Give them the money they ask.

But require them to keep some libraries open every day and every night of the week.

Require NYPL leadership to keep the 42nd Street Library — the largest, most central, most accessible and most well endowed of all NYC libraries — open 80 hours per week, including on Sundays, as stipulated in NYPL’s contract with the City.

80 hours a week at Forty-Second Street!
80 hours a week at Forty-Second Street!
80 hours a week at Forty-Second Street!

And on the seventh day there was service.

Thank you

† Lydenberg, Harry M. History of the New York Public Library: Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations. Pg 450.

Right now, there isn’t a single public library open anywhere in the Bronx, Brooklyn, or Manhattan on Sundays. Across the city, millions of students, scholars, inventors, and readers lack a quiet, accessible place to work on the day when most New Yorkers are free.

Will you help change that? At a minimum, NYPL should keep the centrally-located 42nd Street Library open on Sundays.

Please email the following message to our city-wide representatives:

Dear Comptroller Lander, Public Advocate Williams, and Council Speaker Adams:

Currently, there isn’t a single library open anywhere in the Bronx, Brooklyn, or Manhattan on Sunday. Millions of New Yorkers lack a quiet, accessible place to study, read, write, and research on the day when most are free. Keep the 42nd Street Library open on Sundays! In the words of then candidate Brad Lander: “The library should be open seven days a week.”*

Sincerely,
[your name and address]

…and email it to:  action@comptroller.nyc.gov, gethelp@advocate.nyc.gov, SpeakerAdams@council.nyc.go

On January 6th, 2024, we started this campaign by asking our supporters to forward the following message to NYPL President Anthony Marx and the NYPL Board of Trustees—this letter has now been signed by City Councilmember Chi Ossé, Chair of the Council Committee on Libraries, and we thank him!

If you haven’t already done so, please copy this message and email it to president@nypl.org and boardoftrustees@nypl.org:

From: The Committee to Save the New York Public Library (savenypl.org)
To: Anthony Marx and the NYPL Board of Trustees:

On November 26, 2023, the NYPL suspended Sunday service at all its libraries, including the Central Library on 42nd Street. Budget cuts by city government have forced the public library systems in Queens and Brooklyn to take similar action, leaving the city with no open libraries for half of every weekend. We write to urge that the 42nd Street Library, which is differently funded from the branch libraries, remain open on Sundays, when most people have free time to use it.

The 42nd Street Library was built with the taxpayers’ money on city land, NYC still owns the building and its contract with NYPL* requires that the library remain open 80 hours per week. As a private institution with an endowment of over $1.5 billion, NYPL suffers least from Mayor Adams’s budget cuts: it can surely afford the cost of keeping Sunday hours on 42nd St. Funding is a question of priorities.

Keeping the doors open at the 42nd Street Library would cost a fraction of the millions NYPL leadership has spent recently building a supersized gift shop for tourists, and new, redundant elevators and stairs so caterers can more efficiently service private parties and weddings.** Already, these private events limit the time available for researchers and readers, and now with the library closed all day Sunday, they have even less time.

Some of those researchers and readers cannot use the library on Saturday for religious reasons, leaving them with no library at all on weekends. We urge NYPL leaders to remedy this discriminatory situation.

The stated mission of the library—to serve all the citizens of the city—has not changed over the years, even as curtailed hours have restricted library use.  A representative of the library told the City Council last year as it sought to increase taxpayer funding: “Libraries open doors. But not if they’re CLOSED.” And yet, the leadership of NYPL has chosen to close the doors of the 42nd Street Library on Sundays. We think this violates its primary mission.

The Committee to Save the NYPL has tracked the steady reduction in hours, from an average of 82 hours per week between 1911 and 1960, to its current low of less than 55 hours (the recent Sunday closings cut those hours even further). If the Library is to fulfill its mission to the citizens of NYC and beyond, NYPL leadership must keep its doors open on Sundays.

* contract with NYPL: https://savenypl.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/HPC-to-LPC-08-12-19-Letter-and-Exhibits-Combined.pdf

** private parties and weddings: https://www.nypl.org/sites/default/files/nypl_fall_2017_special_events_brochure.pdf

On January 12th, NYPL President Marx sent the following response:

From: Anthony Marx <president@nypl.org>
Subject: Re: keep the 42nd Street Library open on Sundays!
Date: January 12, 2024 at 4:33:31 PM EST

Dear —-,

Thank you for your email and for sharing your concerns about the impact of New York City’s budget cuts to the Library. I share your frustration. Closing on Sundays was a decision we did not make lightly, but one we unfortunately deemed necessary due to the severity of these cuts.

I’d like to give you some background that might help explain why we felt compelled to respond to our budget challenges the way we did, and some context on the other issues you referenced.

In its November Plan, the City proposed a 5% mid-year cut to our funding which will also carry into future fiscal years. This means we needed to immediately reduce our budgets. Sundays are maintained through overtime funding, making their operational costs 50% higher than other days. In addition to costing more, Sundays historically are the least used days in our systems (including at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building). While you are correct that the Research Centers are primarily privately funded, we also do rely on a significant portion of City funding each year: over 30% of Research’s budget is funded through the City of New York. As you know, the New York Public Library is a single system that operates the Research Centers as well as our extensive network of Branch Libraries. Since the Branch Libraries are mostly funded by the City, the cuts have disproportionately impacted those services. But given the magnitude of this immediate budget reduction, affecting both the Branches and Research Libraries, the most prudent measure was, regrettably, to eliminate Sunday service across the system for the time being.

You are also correct that over nearly a decade we have invested over $250 million of capital funds to improve the Schwarzman Building for our researchers and the public. These include:

• The new Gregorian Center for Research in the Humanities, with renovated space for 400 researchers, collections consultations, school visits, and programs.
• The new Polonsky Exhibit of the Library’s Treasures, the first permanent display which brought in its 1 millionth visitor last year.
• The Milstein Stacks, state-of-the-art storage for 4 million volumes and archival materials.
• A new entrance on 40th street and the Marshall Rose Plaza, along with new elevators and stairs to improve the movement of people and our collections – separating the public from back-of-house functions – while also improving accessibility and ADA compliance.
• A new visitor center to introduce the public to the Schwarzman Building and NYPL as a whole, and reduce tourist traffic in the Rose Main Reading Room.
• A new exhibitions gallery, opening this March in the site of the former gift shop, which will significantly increase the footprint for temporary exhibitions.
• A new location for the shop, moving it away from the main hall and making room for more exhibition space.
• And updated bathrooms and other mechanical improvements.

It is worth pointing out that both the shop and rentals are important sources of revenue for the Library; these are even more important at a moment of financial stress. Further, as I noted above, we have taken care to make building improvements so these operations do not disrupt the public services of the Library. Similarly, we take every precaution to ensure access to  services remains available to patrons when hosting private events and in the past 10 years have only rarely implemented an early closure for the building.

Building renovations are one-time costs paid for in capital funds. This funding is entirely separate from the day-to-day operations of the Library, including Sunday service, which are recurring costs paid for out of our operating budget (of which the City is a major source).

In addition to the physical improvements, we have been proud of the progress we’ve been able to make in supporting researchers at 42nd Street over the last few years, including:

• Expanding fellowships by 50% since 2020.
• Adding new curators including for the Middle East & Islamic Studies, Latin American, Iberian & Latino Studies, and Slavic & East European Collections.
• Doubling the size of the research collections available to the public from 10 million to 24 million volumes, through our partnership with Columbia, Princeton and Harvard, while investing in and growing our special collections, including making several significant and noteworthy acquisitions
• Expanding digital access through enhancements to our research catalog, making more public domain works available, and in digitizing over 100,000 items.

This important momentum is unfortunately blunted by our latest financial challenges. Even more worrisome, we are facing an additional 5% cut in the upcoming January Plan that would force us to further reduce services. In the coming months we will launch our #NoCutsToLibraries advocacy campaign to ensure the public’s voices are heard by our elected officials. I hope we can count on your support to join us in persuading our City leaders that this funding is vital to maintain our services and needs to be restored.

I appreciate your dedication to the Library’s critical mission to serve all the public – from the scholar at the Schwarzman Building to the child learning to read in the Mott Haven Library. And I look forward to working together to return Sunday service to all New Yorkers.

 Yours,
Tony

On January 21st, we sent President Marx and the Board the following reply, clarifying why Sunday hours at the 42nd Street Library are both essential and feasible.

Committee to Save
NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

To: Anthony Marx and the NYPL Board of Trustees:

Thank you for your response to the many letters sent by Committee to Save NYPL supporters. We are heartened that Chi Ossé, the Chair of the NYC Council Committee on Cultural Affairs, Libraries, and International Intergroup Relations, has endorsed our letter, too. Unfortunately, your message did not allay our concern about the decision to suspend Sunday hours at the NYPL branches, nor our alarm that the 42nd Street Library is now closed on Sunday in violation of its original agreement with the City of New York.

Maintaining a library and reading room, open to all, every day of the week, was the founding premise of NYPL’s Central Library on 42nd Street; the City funded its construction for that purpose. Your decision to deprive New Yorkers of all library services on Sunday is irresponsible, but doing so to provoke public protest, as suggested by your planned launch of the #NoCutsToLibraries campaign, is wrong-headed. We encourage you to see library users as patrons rather than pawns.

The budget numbers from your letter show that 30% of the research libraries’ budget comes from the City. The 5% cut in this contribution results in a 1.5% reduction to the overall budget of the four research libraries, which rely primarily on private funding, and the 42nd Street Library is but one of the four. Is keeping it open on Sunday beyond the means of an institution with a $1.5 billion private endowment? Perhaps keeping open all branches is a real financial challenge, but the shortfall at the 42nd Street Library can surely be managed. The obligation to provide one open library on Sunday for New Yorkers with no alternative should compel you to maintain this essential service.

Thank you for the list of accomplishments from the past decade. We applaud the newly funded fellowships, the new curators, and access to larger physical and digital collections. All improvements to library services deserve wide support. It is curious that the only price tag you provide is the $250 million spent on capital improvements to the 42nd Street Library.

Money spent on improved access to the library building is always welcome, but other changes have had unfortunate results: The new visitor center (and redundant coat room) displaced the map collection, causing longer waits for delivery of maps; the giant relocated gift shop may have made way for a small exhibition space, but it displaced two modern classrooms; the new redundant elevators – just a few feet away from an existing one – aid caterers serving canapés more than librarians serving readers. When the library is closed on Sunday, these changes benefit no one except those with the money to rent the building for private events.

We urge NYPL to re-align its priorities at the 42nd Street Library. Nurturing the human capital of library users is more urgent than many discretionary capital projects there; after all, the library’s building should be used as a learning center, not a profit center.

By monitoring trustee meetings, the Committee to Save NYPL has learned that some of Stephen Schwarzman’s generous, $100 million contribution to the Library has been deployed in temporary bridge loans to fund capital projects – when new funds are raised these loans are repaid, thus returning the donation to its original value. Similar financial flexibility could meet the current budget shortfall. Since Schwarzman’s name has been carved into the marble walls beside every door of the 42nd Street Library, is there a better use for his donation than to keep those doors open on Sunday?

Committee to Save NYPL, January 21, 2024
SaveNYPL.com

The greatest publicly accessible research library in the world is being converted into a tourist trap by day and a party venue by night.

Despite the pandemic, despite the battered economy, despite concerns among some trustees that the throngs of tourists interfere with library services, NYPL leadership is spending millions of dollars to supersize the gift shop and to reconfigure the 42nd Street Library with a new loading dock and two elevators to meet the needs of caterers.

Under cloak of Covid, and with scant mention of a capital project at 42nd Street at www.nypl.org, the leadership has been busy knocking out a window between Gottesman Hall and the South Court to drive foot traffic to their gift shop. In a recent meeting of NYPL’s Capital Planning subcommittee that we called in to, officials can be heard delighting in the speed with which construction is being done — in the absence of the public.

NYPL leaders continue to commercialize and privatize the central research library, desecrating and dumbing down the “people’s university“.

Where the 42nd Street Library was open 80+ hours per week in its first sixty years, before the pandemic it was only open 56 hours, closing before 6pm on most work nights, opening for only four hours on Sundays, and closing entirely on Sundays in summer. By day, tourists distract and drive out New Yorkers. By night, security rushes out students and researchers, so that the palace of culture can be decorated for yet another cocktail party or wedding.

Meanwhile, the endowment is at a record of more than $1.5 billion and the combined net worth of the trustees, some $37 billion, could fund the entire NYPL system — three research libraries and 88 lending libraries — for the next 100 years. As the late trustee Lewis B. Cullman said, “you can’t take it with you”.

When the pandemic ends, New Yorkers will need their civic spaces to repair the tattered social fabric of our city. Perhaps the greatest of these is the 42nd Street Library. Carved into the stone of this building are the words: “The City of New York has erected this building for the free use of all the people.”

Should NYPL leadership be wasting millions on a gift shop and catering elevators, or investing in longer hours for New Yorkers and usable, climate-controlled book stacks (which have sat empty for years)?

Should NYPL leadership be wasting millions on an e-reader that nobody uses, or fixing the long broken catalog?

Should NYPL leadership be carving up a city-owned landmark out of public sight?

Should the name of Trump loyalist Stephen Schwarzman be carved yet another time into the marble walls of the 42nd Street Library?

We encourage you to:

• Write to NYPL President Tony Marx (president@nypl.org). Tell him to invest in longer hours and usable books stacks at the 42nd Street Library, not gift shops and catering elevators.

• Contact elected officials and candidates. The mayor, the comptroller, and the speaker each appoint a representative to the NYPL board. Ask them what they will do to protect what Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer has called “one of our greatest civic assets”. The 42nd Street Library belongs to the City of New York. It was created for the “free use of all the people”.

• Forward this email, contact your friends, and post to Twitter & FB.

• And tune in to SaveNYPL counsel Michael Hiller’s weekly forum with candidates.

As Councilmember Ben Kallos, running for Manhattan Borough President, put it: the 42nd Street Library should again be open 80 hours per week.

On Thursday the State Review Board voted unanimously to recommend the Carnegie Libraries of NYC to the State and National Registers of Historic Places.

This means that the remaining 56 libraries constructed with funds donated by Andrew Carnegie will receive state and federal protection, making local designation by the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission more likely. These buildings include such treasures as NYPL’s Hamilton Grange Branch, BPL’s Pacific Branch, and QPL’s Astoria Branch.

This designation represents the culmination of a three-year joint effort by the Committee to Save the New York Public Library (SaveNYPL.org) and the Historic Districts Council.

While all work by SaveNYPL is done by volunteers, we need the help of supporters like you to keep the website running, print pamphlets, make signs and, in this case, to pay for outside experts to conduct research in support of designation.

We thank you for your past generosity and ask if you will consider making a tax-deductible contribution:

https://savenypl.org/donate

We hope this message finds you as well as can be. In the months ahead, we expect libraries to play an essential role in repairing the fabric of our city.

(Above image: Pacific Branch, Brooklyn Public Library. Image courtesy of Uli Seit for The New York Times.)

Next Tuesday, November 12th—a week from today—from 5:30 to 7:00pm, the NYPL will hold a public meeting about “Midtown Campus Updates” at the Central Library in Astor Hall (42nd & 5th, in Bryant Park).

The description of the meeting states only that “the latest information on the Library’s midtown master plan will be shared.” However, we urge you to attend to express concern about the secretive and destructive construction plans, the failure of NYPL to disclose its “stacks study,” and the shortened hours during which the Central Library remains open for readers.

This is a rare opportunity to hold NYPL’s leadership accountable to the public it serves. Please attend and help us fight to restore the NYPL to its former status as the greatest publicly-accessible research library in the world.

Note that an RSVP is required. You may do so here.

On September 18th, the New York Public Library cancelled a planned event with Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman’s private foundation after protests about his abuse of human rights. We would like to thank our allies Action Project and Code Pink for quickly mobilizing to oppose the event.

The library’s announcement shortly followed the appearance of an op-ed in the Guardian penned by Matthew Zadrozny, President of Save NYPL, and Annia Ciezadlo:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/sep/18/why-is-new-yorks-most-famous-library-getting-into-bed-with-the-saudi-crown-prince

Now that the New York Public Library has cancelled the Saudi crown prince’s MiSK event, here are some things you can do next:

1. Contact your Senators in New York (that’s Chuck Schumer and Kirstin Gillibrand) and ask them to withdraw US military aid for the Saudi-led coalition’s war in Yemen.

2. Keep asking who at NYPL approved the MiSK event and why?! Was Mohammed bin Salman invited to use NYPL’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building because of trustee Schwarzman’s ties to MBS (who invested $20 billion with Schwarzman at Blackstone)?

3. Write to NYPL President Tony Marx: president@nypl.org to ask him why NYPL decided to help whitewash the reputation of this murderous dictator, and call Marx’s assistant at 212-930-0098 to make your views known.

4. Help us save NYPL and hold its trustees accountable to the people of NY. Support us at: https://savenypl.org/donate.

(All of us at SaveNYPL volunteer our time and labor, but need help with legal expenses, web hosting, etc.)

5. Follow and support the organizations and activists who partnered with us on this protest action: Code Pink, Action Corps, Human Rights Watch, Sunjeev Berry, and Ken Roth.

Thank you!

On Tuesday, February 5th, the Landmarks Committee of Community Board 5 met to discuss proposed changes to the 42nd Street Library that would create a new entrance and terrace on 40th Street. The new entrance would be paired with an inscription dedicated to trustee Stephen A. Schwarzman carved into the building’s marble facade (see image below). These changes are just the tip of the iceberg. More radical alterations planned for the library’s interiors will adversely impact historic spaces without providing improvements to research services.

At the meeting, several members from Save NYPL testified in opposition to these alterations, while criticizing library officials for their lack of transparency. Thanks to our efforts, CB5’s Landmarks Committee recommended several changes to NYPL’s proposal that will be forwarded to the full Community Board. Once the full board votes on the matter, their resolution will be transmitted to the Landmarks Preservation Commission.

We encourage everyone to join us on Tuesday, February 19th, 12:30 PM at the Landmarks Preservation Commission (1 Center Street, 9th Floor North) to oppose these insensitive alterations to New York City’s greatest Beaux-Arts landmark. The public will have the opportunity to deliver three minutes of testimony. More public input is needed to improve this deeply flawed proposal.

This week we are launching a petition to expand the hours at the 42nd Street Library. Please join us in calling on library leaders to make longer hours a critical component of their 42nd Street Library Master Plan. Sign and share our petition with friends and colleagues:

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/Expand-Hours-at-the-42nd-Street-Library

We call on the New York Public Library to return the hours at the 42nd Street Library to previous norms, so that the landmarked Rose Reading Room is open later in the evenings. Library leaders should increase hours to 9 or 10 PM on all weekdays, and stop closing the library on Sundays during the summer.

Every year over two million readers visit the 42nd Street Library. Unfortunately, reduced hours dating back to the 1970s have damaged the library’s mission.

The library was once open 87 hours per week. Now it is open just 56. Shorter hours hurt those who can use the library only on weekends or evenings.

Expanding hours at the NYPL’s largest and most central library remains the simplest and most effective means for improving library service. The cost of the current “Midtown Campus Renovation” is $317 million, yet NYPL refuses to spend smaller sums to increase hours and expand services – something researchers and the public have repeatedly requested in surveys and meetings.

At a time when library usage is skyrocketing and NYPL’s endowment stands at a record $1.3 billion, NYPL must keep up with demand. Increased hours mean more opportunities for students to study for exams, writers to work on books, and freelancers to meet deadlines.

Tell NYPL leadership to help more people use the 42nd Street Library: Restore Sunday and evening hours!

In what has become an unfortunate annual tradition, the 42nd Street Library will be closed on Sundays for the remainder of the summer. With the Mid-Manhattan Library currently undergoing renovations, readers now have fewer opportunities to consult books and reference materials over the weekend. Instead, library patrons are redirected to the woefully inadequate 53rd Street Library, which has neither the collections nor the space to accommodate the research needs of the public.

Meanwhile, the second floor corridor will undergo construction work that will transform a series of underutilized rooms into a new “scholar center.” Opening additional rooms is a welcome step but does not address the most pressing concerns of library users. In numerous surveys and public meetings, users have made expanded hours a top priority.

If there are advantages for some to building a learning center and “scholar center,” they cannot compare to the benefits for all of increased operating hours for the General Research Division. For this reason, we have repeatedly called on NYPL officials to expand hours at 42nd Street, especially now that the building is undergoing a massive $317 million renovation.

Both the city and the library’s trustees must ensure the library has the adequate funding it needs so it can stay open longer. Since 2004, NYPL’s operating budget for research libraries has only increased by $12 million. Despite the success of the “Invest in Libraries” fundraising campaign, NYPL leaders have shown scant appetite for requesting additional operating funds for the research libraries. With private contributions making up 36% of the operating budget for research libraries, NYPL trustees must fund expanded hours with the same largesse they have shown for major capital expansions that offer prestigious naming rights.

When Sunday service first returned to NYPL’s central research library in 2004 after a 34 year hiatus, it marked a turning point in the deplorable decline in operating hours that began during the 1970s budget crisis.

It’s time to permanently restore Sunday service year-round and expand library hours across the board. It’s time to invest in research libraries.

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