Wall Street Journal: NYPL Abandoning Central Library Plan, But Won’t Return Books to 42nd St. Stacks

The Wall Street Journal confirms the earlier NY Times article.  The NYPL is abandoning the Central Library Plan.  BUT THERE’S A BIG CATCH: “Under the new plan, the book stacks would be preserved but would remain empty of books. The research collection would instead be stored in climate-controlled storage space under Bryant Park.”

The only thing sillier than the original plan would be preserving the empty stacks free of books – an utterly and obviously pointless state of affairs that will just beg for resolution via a new “renovation” project a few years down the line. And the planned additional storage space under Bryant Park will only hold 1.5 million books, less than half the books that were in the stacks; the remaining 1.5-2 million books will still have to be shipped to New Jersey.

Saving the Mid-Manhattan is a great victory, but we still have work to do!