53rd Street Library
The 53rd Street Library is a branch of the New York Public Library at 18 West 53rd Street, just west of Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building is located on the south side of 53rd Street, across from the Museum of Modern Art, and adjacent to 660 Fifth Avenue to the east. The library occupies the ground story and two basement levels of a 46-story hotel and residential building.
It opened in 2016 as a replacement for the Donnell Library Center, which occupied a building at 20 West 53rd Street. The Donnell Library Center operated from 1955 until 2008, when it was replaced by the current 46-story building.
Redevelopment[edit]
The five-story library, two blocks north of Rockefeller Center, was located across 53rd Street from the Museum of Modern Art, another relatively low-rise mid-block building among many taller Midtown Manhattan buildings along nearby Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue.
In November 2007 Orient-Express Hotels Ltd. which owns the 21 Club directly south of the library on 52nd Street, announced an agreement to raze the library and replace it with an 11-story hotel. At that time, the library was unable to afford the expense of needed repairs to its elevator and air conditioning systems.[4] The library was vacated in the summer of 2008. The World Languages Collection moved to the Mid-Manhattan Library on 40th Street.[5]
In March 2009, after the financial crisis of 2007–08, Orient Express backed out.[6] In October 2011, demolition began on the building after Orient sold the building to Tribeca Associates and Starwood Capital Group, to erect a 46-story $400 million hotel/condo complex with a library. Originally supposed to open by June 30, 2014,[7] it opened in March 2015 without a library.[8] It was planned to be the flagship of the new Baccarat Hotels and Resorts luxury brand.[9] It was later sold to Chinese insurer Sunshine Insurance Group for $230 million.[10]
The formal design by Enrique Norten of TEN Arquitectos of the new library was unveiled in May 2013. The new library is 28,000 square feet (2,600 m2), as opposed to the original 97,000-square-foot (9,000 m2) space, on part of the main floor and two lower floors. Much of the main floor space is a massive airy staircase with "bleacher steps" where people can sit and congregate. The new library has a 141-seat auditorium (smaller than the old) and a technology hub. The building contains a two-story-high glass facade.[11] It opened June 27, 2016.[12] Critics spoke highly of the new design but disapproved the smaller size.[13]
