News & Events

  • SaveNYPL at the City Council: Keep Libraries Open on Sunday

    SaveNYPL at the City Council: Keep Libraries Open on Sunday

    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 ZadroznyPresident, Committee to Save the New York Public Library (savenypl.org/) New…

  • Keep the 42nd Street Library Open on Sundays!

    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 Vandals Are Inside the NYPL | Call Your Candidates & Officials | Weekly Candidate Forum

    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…

  • Major Victory: Landmarking NYC’s Carnegie Libraries

    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.…

  • NYPL Master Plan Meeting Next Tuesday, November 12, 5:30 – 7pm

    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,…

  • NYPL Cancels Saudi-backed Event After Protests

    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…

  • Edmund Morris on NYPL’s Stacks Study

    Last week, the New York Times reported on NYPL’s decision to keep the stacks at the 42nd Street Library empty indefinitely. In a letter to the editors published just before his passing, our friend Edmund Morris offers a brief comment on this sad state of affairs:  To the Editor: The Times has done New York and its…

  • Alterations to 42nd Street Library Raise Alarm

    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…

  • Petition to Expand Hours at NYPL

    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…

  • Closing Time: Reduced NYPL Hours Burden Readers

    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…

  • Response to NYPL’s Master Plan

      At two public meetings in November and December last year, NYPL revealed its Master Plan governing renovations to the 42nd Street Library. Here is our response. At a time when misinformation seems to be increasingly prevalent in our lives, libraries are our city’s most precious resource. The New York Public Library at 42nd Street…

  • Patience and Fortitude now in paperback!

      How did one of the world’s great public research libraries nearly destroy itself? That question is central to Scott Sherman’s superlative book, Patience and Fortitude, now in paperback. A gripping account of the David versus Goliath story about citizens fighting to take back their library, Sherman’s book describes in vivid detail the enormous efforts…