place

New York Mercantile Library

2005 establishments in New York CityLibraries in ManhattanMidtown ManhattanNon-profit organizations based in New York CitySubscription libraries
Mercantile Library at Astor Opera House crop
Mercantile Library at Astor Opera House crop

The Center for Fiction, originally called the New York Mercantile Library, is a not-for-profit organization in New York City, with offices at 15 Lafayette Avenue in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Prior to their move in early 2018, The Center for Fiction was located at 17 East 47th Street, between Madison and Fifth Avenues in Midtown Manhattan. The Center works to promote fiction and literature and to give support to writers. It originated in 1820 as the (New York) Mercantile Library and in 2005 changed its name to the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction, although it presents itself as simply "The Center for Fiction". The Center, which is one of 17 remaining membership libraries in the United States, three of which are in New York City, maintains a large circulating library of 20th and 21st century fiction, in addition to many stored volumes of 19th century fiction. It also stocks non-fiction volumes on subjects related to literature. It maintains a Reading Room, operates a curated independent bookstore primarily featuring works of fiction, rents space to writers at low cost, and presents literary programs to the public. The organization also awards the annual Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article New York Mercantile Library (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

New York Mercantile Library
East 47th Street, New York Manhattan

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address External links Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: New York Mercantile LibraryContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 40.756369444444 ° E -73.977286111111 °
placeShow on map

Address

East 47th Street 17
10017 New York, Manhattan
New York, United States
mapOpen on Google Maps

linkWikiData (Q5059640)
linkOpenStreetMap (266170626)

Mercantile Library at Astor Opera House crop
Mercantile Library at Astor Opera House crop
Share experience

Nearby Places

Church of Sweden in New York
Church of Sweden in New York

Church of Sweden in New York (Swedish: Svenska kyrkan i New York; also known as the Swedish Seamen's Church) is a Church of Sweden church in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is a parish of the Church of Sweden Abroad. Dating to 1921, it is located at 5 East 48th Street. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2014.The church is currently open Wednesday to Sunday. Its café is located in the church's basement while work is undertaken on the building's upper floors. A library and reading room (featuring a memorial plaque to Raoul Wallenberg) is located on the first floor, while the chapel, sacristy and children's room is on the second floor. The chapel's organ dates to 1986, the work of Torshälla's Walter Thür. The uppermost floors are private residences and a rooftop terrace. Its founding came after around 1.4 million Swedes arrived on American shores between 1820 and 1900. They found solace in these churches, where they could keep up with news from their homeland, collect and send mail and enjoy refreshments.In 1921, a year after a donation of around $250,000 from Henrietta E. Francis Talcott, the church was rebuilt in a Gothic style. The donor was the wife of farmer-turned-millionaire James Talcott, who died in 1916 at the age of 86. The new building was the work of architect Wilfred E. Anthony (1878–1948). Henrietta died in December 1921, aged 79; it is not known whether she got to see the finished building. On 31 March, 1978, the Church of Sweden Abroad bought the property from the New York Bible Society for $570,000. The air rights were sold in 1981 for $1 million and paid off the debt.The song "Christmas in New York" was written by Billy Butt on the church's piano in 1979.

383 Madison Avenue
383 Madison Avenue

383 Madison Avenue, formerly known as the Bear Stearns Building, is a 755-foot (230 m), 47-story skyscraper in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. Built in 2002 for financial services firm Bear Stearns, it was designed by architect David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). It housed Bear Stearns's world headquarters until 2008, when Bear collapsed and was sold to JPMorgan Chase. Since then, JPMorgan's investment banking division has occupied the building. 383 Madison Avenue occupies an entire city block bounded by Madison Avenue, 47th Street, Vanderbilt Avenue and 46th Street. The eastern two-thirds of the building is erected over two stories of tracks leading to the nearby Grand Central Terminal. Above the rectangular base, there are several setbacks tapering to an octagonal tower. The facade is made of granite with glass panels, and the tower is topped by a 70-foot (21 m) glass crown. To accommodate the railroad tracks under the site, the foundation and superstructure contain large sloped girders and trusses, and the elevators are placed on the west side of the building. The ground story also contains public spaces and an entrance to Grand Central Terminal. Above are seven trading floors, as well as office stories. The building has a usable floor area of 935,300 sq ft (86,890 m2); including mechanical spaces, its total floor area is 1.2 million square feet (110,000 m2). G. Ware Travelstead, First Boston, and the al-Babtain family acquired the site in 1982 and tried to develop a building with more than 70 stories. That plan stalled after Travelstead could not acquire the required air rights from Grand Central Terminal. HRO International then proposed redeveloping the site, but al-Babtain acquired full ownership in 1995 before HRO could obtain the lot. Bear Stearns agreed to develop the site in 1997 after several potential tenants declined to lease space there. Work started in 1999 and was completed in early 2002. When demolition of JPMorgan Chase's world headquarters at 270 Park Avenue commenced in 2019, the bank's temporary headquarters was relocated to 383 Madison Avenue until the JPMorgan Chase Tower is completed on the same site.

Charles Scribner's Sons Building
Charles Scribner's Sons Building

The Charles Scribner's Sons Building, also known as 597 Fifth Avenue, is a commercial structure in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, on Fifth Avenue between 48th and 49th Streets. Designed by Ernest Flagg in a Beaux Arts style, it was built from 1912 to 1913 for the Scribner's Bookstore. The Fifth Avenue facade contains a glass-and-iron storefront on its lowest two stories with black and gold decoration. On the third through ninth stories, the facade is subdivided into five limestone bays, while at the tenth story is a mansard roof. Among the facade's details are vertical piers with four medallions containing busts of printers: Benjamin Franklin, William Caxton, Johann Gutenberg, and Aldus Manutius. The interior of the first two stories contains a retail space that initially served as a location of the Scribner's Bookstore. The upper stories contain offices, including some space that was initially used by the Scribner's publishing company. The Charles Scribner's Sons Building was constructed to supersede a previous bookstore at 155 Fifth Avenue. The building was owned by Scribner's until 1984, when it was sold to the Cohen family, which subsequently sold it to the Benetton Group. After the bookstore in the lowest two stories closed in 1989, the building has housed numerous retail shops. A&A Investment Co. bought 597 Fifth Avenue in 2006 and it was sold to Thor Equities in 2011. The New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designated 597 Fifth Avenue as an official landmark in 1982 and designated the ground-floor interior as a landmark in 1989.

St. Nicholas Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church
St. Nicholas Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church

St. Nicholas Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church was a Reformed Protestant Dutch church in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, which was Manhattan's oldest congregation when it was demolished in 1949. The church was on the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 48th Street near Rockefeller Center. The church was built in 1872 to Gothic Revival designs in brownstone by architect W. Wheeler Smith and "distinguished by an elegantly tapered spire that, according to John A. Bradley in the New York Times, 'many declare…the most beautiful in this country.'" The congregation dated to 1628. St Nicholas's was the New York City church attended by Theodore Roosevelt, and a memorial service was held for him on January 30, 1919.In the 1920s, during the construction of Rockefeller Center, the governing body of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Churches of New York considered putting the church up for sale, which prompted an early preservation campaign in New York with the Rev. Dr, Joseph R. Sizoo, the church's minister, arguing that the church was "a shrine" and its sale would put the dollar sign before the cross. Despite initial success, the pastor, Rev. Dr. Malcolm James MacLeod, later reneged on the church's intention to sell to the Rockefeller complex for as much as $7 million. the tension between the minister with congregation and the pro-sale church governing body led most of the congregation and Sizoo to leave. The governing body pitched the sale again in 1946, and after "considerable public debate", a deal was made in 1949. The church was demolished to make way for the Sinclair Oil Company Building at 596 (now 600) Fifth Avenue.The bell of the church came from the Middle Collegiate Church, built in the 1830s on Lafayette Place (now Lafayette Street) after it was abandoned. After the demolition of St Nicholas's, the bell was relocated to the New Middle Collegiate Church on Second Avenue, Manhattan.