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New York Public Library Main Branch

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New York Public Library Main Branch (51396225599)
New York Public Library Main Branch (51396225599)

The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, commonly known as the Main Branch or the New York Public Library, is the flagship building in the New York Public Library system in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The branch, one of four research libraries in the library system, contains nine separate divisions. The structure contains four stories open to the public. The main entrance steps are at Fifth Avenue at its intersection with East 41st Street. As of 2015, the branch contains an estimated 2.5 million volumes in its stacks. The building was declared a National Historic Landmark, a National Register of Historic Places site, and a New York City designated landmark in the 1960s. The Main Branch was built after the New York Public Library was formed as a combination of two libraries in the late 1890s. The site, along Fifth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets, is located directly east of Bryant Park, on the site of the Croton Reservoir. The architectural firm Carrère and Hastings constructed the structure in the Beaux-Arts style, and the structure opened on May 23, 1911. The marble facade of the building contains ornate detailing, and the Fifth Avenue entrance is flanked by a pair of stone lions that serve as the library's icon. The interior of the building contains the Main Reading Room, a space measuring 78 by 297 feet (24 by 91 m) with a 52-foot-high (16 m) ceiling; a Public Catalog Room; and various reading rooms, offices, and art exhibitions. The Main Branch became popular after its opening, and saw 4 million annual visitors by the 1920s. It formerly contained a circulating library, though the circulating division of the Main Branch moved to the nearby Mid-Manhattan Library in 1970. Additional space for the library's stacks was constructed under adjacent Bryant Park in 1991, and the branch's Main Reading Room was restored in 1998. A major restoration from 2007 to 2011 was underwritten by a $100 million gift from philanthropist Stephen A. Schwarzman, for whom the branch was subsequently renamed. Since 2018, the branch has been undergoing an additional expansion. The Main Branch has been featured in many television shows and films.

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New York Public Library Main Branch
5th Avenue, New York Manhattan

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N 40.753055555556 ° E -73.981944444444 °
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New York Public Library (The Humanities And Social Sciences Library;Stephen A. Schwarzman Building)

5th Avenue 476
10018 New York, Manhattan
New York, United States
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nypl.org

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New York Public Library Main Branch (51396225599)
New York Public Library Main Branch (51396225599)
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New York Public Library
New York Public Library

The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress) and the fourth largest in the world. It is a private, non-governmental, independently managed, nonprofit corporation operating with both private and public financing.The library has branches in the boroughs of the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island and affiliations with academic and professional libraries in the New York metropolitan area. The city's other two boroughs, Brooklyn and Queens, are not served by the New York Public Library system, but rather by their respective borough library systems: the Brooklyn Public Library and the Queens Public Library. The branch libraries are open to the general public and consist of circulating libraries. The New York Public Library also has four research libraries, which are also open to the general public. The library, officially chartered as The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations, was developed in the 19th century, founded from an amalgamation of grass-roots libraries and social libraries of bibliophiles and the wealthy, aided by the philanthropy of the wealthiest Americans of their age. The "New York Public Library" name may also refer to its Main Branch, which is easily recognizable by its lion statues named Patience and Fortitude that sit either side of the entrance. The branch was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966, and designated a New York City Landmark in 1967.

452 Fifth Avenue
452 Fifth Avenue

452 Fifth Avenue (also the HSBC Tower and formerly the Republic National Bank Building) is an office building at the southwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 40th Street in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The building includes the 30-story, 400-foot (120 m) HSBC Tower, completed in late 1985 and designed by Attia & Perkins. The 10-story Knox Building, a Beaux-Arts office building designed in 1902 by John H. Duncan, is preserved at the base of the skyscraper. 452 Fifth Avenue faces Bryant Park immediately to the north. The HSBC Tower is designed with a glass facade, which curves around the Knox Building to the north; a similar curved tower across Fifth Avenue was never built. The Knox Building's facade remains largely as it was originally designed, with decorated limestone cladding, a cornice above the sixth floor, and a mansard roof. The Knox Building is a New York City designated landmark and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Internally, the tower is tied into the stories of the Knox Building. The Knox Building was erected between 1901 and 1902 for Edward M. Knox, who operated the Knox Hat Company and leased out several stories to office tenants. In 1964, the Knox heirs sold the building to a group that founded the Republic National Bank of New York and used the building as the bank's headquarters. The bank acquired the neighboring lots in the 1970s and hired Attia & Perkins to design a tower to house its new world headquarters, which would wrap around the Knox Building. The tower was expanded in the 1990s and sold to the investment bank HSBC. In October 2009, HSBC Holdings sold the building to Midtown Equities and Israeli holding company IDB Group, the latter of which passed the building to a subsidiary, Property & Building Corporation (PBC). HSBC continued to lease back its space in the building until 2022, when the bank announced it would relocate.

500 Fifth Avenue
500 Fifth Avenue

500 Fifth Avenue is a 60-story, 697-foot-tall (212 m) office building on the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon in the Art Deco style and constructed from 1929 to 1931. 500 Fifth Avenue was designed with a facade of bronze, limestone, and terracotta at the base; it is clad with of brick above the fourth floor. While the lowest four floors contain a decorative exterior, little ornamentation is used above the base. The primary entrance is on Fifth Avenue, and storefronts are located at ground level. Upon its opening, the building contained design features including fast elevators, well-lit office units, and a floor plan that maximized the well-lit office space. The 1916 Zoning Resolution resulted in a structure that incorporated setbacks, resulting in the lower floors being larger than the upper floors. 500 Fifth Avenue was built for businessman Walter J. Salmon Sr. In the 1920s, prior to the building's development, the underlying land had become extremely valuable. Similarly to the much larger Empire State Building nine blocks south, which was constructed simultaneously, 500 Fifth Avenue's construction was highly coordinated. 500 Fifth Avenue opened in March 1931, but the structure garnered relatively little attention after the Empire State Building opened shortly afterward. The building was designated an official city landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 2010.