NYPL Dumps Much-Maligned 42nd Street Renovation Plan

In an unexpected turn of events, the New York Public Library has abandoned a controversial plan to renovate the main branch of the library on 42nd Street, a move that would have hollowed out the core of the structure, removing the historic research stacks underneath the main reading room and replacing them with an airy public space and circulating library.

Instead, the NYPL will renovate the system’s largest circulating library—the Mid-Manhattan–which was to have been shuttered and sold under the old plan, leaving the stacks at the main branch intact, according to a statement released by the library yesterday afternoon.