NYPL’s Sells Donnell Building; Library Will Occupy Three Floors of New Hotel
By Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 11/8/2007 10:54:00 AM
You know the wonderful Central Children’s Room on the second floor of the Donnell Library Center in New York? The one that provides kids and adults with more than 100,000 volumes of material, including a collection of 18th- and 19th- century children's books?
Well, as of next fall, it’ll be gone.
Ditto for Teen Central, the space on the mezzanine that provides seventh through twelfth graders with a huge collection of magazines, hardcover, paperback, and recorded books, as well as popular music CDs and films on DVD and VHS.
The New York Public Library (NYPL) signed an agreement to sell the land and the building that houses the Donnell to Orient-Express Hotels for $59 million in cash. The five-story, 84,000 square foot building (half of which is public space) will be demolished to make way for an 11-story hotel.
The good news is that Donnell will continue to own and occupy three levels—one on the ground floor, as well as two levels below—and have a separate entrance from the hotel. “The library will have its own presence,” says spokesman Herb Scher.
The new library, however, will be significantly smaller—only 19,000 square feet of the total 28,000 square feet space will be open to the public, says Scher.
As a result, “some of the collections at the library will be located elsewhere,” says Scher, who declined to elaborate. And what impact will all this have on the children and teen’s rooms? Scher would only say that “There will be resources for children and teens” at the new library.
NYPL agreed to the sale because the Donnell branch needed about $48 million in repairs, Scher says. Proceeds from the sale will also support significant capital needs at other branches.
The current library will close to the public next fall and relocate to a temporary site. Parts of its collections will be available at other locations of the NYPL. During the construction period, library staff will also be reassigned to the temporary site or to other locations.
“We have tons of visitors every single day, from classroom visits to tourists,” says Warren Truitt, a senior children’s librarian at Donnell, who says he and his colleagues found out about the sale on November 6 and were given no further details. “It’s the biggest children’s room in the entire New York Public Library system.”
Construction on the new site will start next fall, and rebuilding is expected to take about three and a half years. Five floors of the hotel will connect to the “21” Club, also owned by Orient-Express.
“Our agreement with Orient-Express presents an extraordinary opportunity for us to create a modern, new circulating library at the same location as our current Donnell facility, which was opened in 1955, and is outdated,” says David Offensend, NYPL's Chief Operating Officer.
