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A Rundbogenstil Library in New York

The handsome former Astor Library on Lafayette Street

One of my favorite buildings in all New York is the former Astor Library on Lafayette Street in Greenwich Village. Now the Public Theater, it is a superb example of the nineteenth-century German neo-romantic Rundbogenstil (“round-arch-style”) and one of the few remnants of that style in New York. The Astor Library was the legacy of John Jacob Astor, whose will provided for its establishment. Late in the nineteenth century, the Astor Library agreed to merge with the Lenox Library and the Tilden Trust to form the New York Public Library, one of the greatest libraries in the history of civilization. The building was bought by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society who tore out the book stacks and used it as a processing station for needy newcomers. In 1965, the HIAS sold it on to a developer who planned to demolish it, but, through a massive civic effort, Joseph Papp and his New York Shakespeare Festival purchased the building and turned it into the Public Theater.

The southernmost third of the building was completed in 1853, with the center section added in 1859, and the final northern expansion in 1881. Originally, each of the building’s three sections held stacks gathered around a central court. Access to the stacks was restricted to librarians, and scholars studied their books at tables in the central spaces. As the Public Theater, the Astor Library now contains five performance spaces as well as Joe’s Pub, named after the founder, Joseph Papp.

The Astor Library was often criticized for only opening during daylight hours, and not allowing books to be borrowed. When the great New York Public Library was formed, it was decided to build lending libraries across Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island to serve ordinary New Yorkers. Many of these branch libraries were designed by McKim Mead & White and other prominent architectural firms of the period, and constitute some of the finest public structures in the city.

I have sometimes thought that if we ever start another Catholic university in New York, the Astor Library would be a superb structure to house part of it. It is, after all, ill-suited to the needs of theatrical performance, and a body like the Public Theater has enough broad support to commission a tailor-made structure elsewhere. But if we get the Astor Library, we would certainly have to purchase all of stately Colonnade Row across the street, a series of edifices that I resist mentioning for it is certainly worthy of a post of its own.

Published at 7:12 pm on Friday 8 August 2008. Categories: Architecture New York Tags: , .
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