The New York Public Library's Great Reading Room

The Deborah, Jonathan F. P., Samuel Priest, and Adam R. Rose Main Reading Room is a majestic public space, measuring 78 feet by 297 feet—roughly the length of two city blocks—and weaving together Old World architectural elegance with modern technology. The award-wining restoration of this room was completed in 1998, thanks to a fifteen million-dollar gift from Library trustee Sandra Priest Rose and Frederick Phineas Rose, who renamed the room in honor of their children.

Here, patrons can read or study at long oak tables lit by elegant bronze lamps, beneath fifty-two foot tall ceilings decorated by dramatic murals of vibrant skies and billowing clouds...

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In one of his memoirs, New York Jew, [Alfred] Kazin described his youthful impression of the reading room: “There was something about the . . . light falling through the great tall windows, the sun burning smooth the tops of the golden tables as if they had been freshly painted—that made me restless with the need to grab up every book, press into every single mind right there on the open shelves.” [Source: NYPL]

In my post on the New York Public Library, Dean Ericson left the following comment:

My 16 year-old nephew was visiting earlier in the summer, his first trip to New York City. The Public Library was one place I brought him and we made a thorough tour of every public space. It is simply one of the world's greatest buildings; grand in concept, perfect in design, and brilliant in craftsmanship. If you come to the City don't miss this inspirational evidence of a superior civilization.
-Dean Ericson

I am happy to inform Dean that I have been inside the library. It was primarily to ask information on membership. I did get my library card, actually two cards: one the size of a credit card, and the other a thinner one with a hole at the top. The latter, as I was informed, is to put on a key chain or something. I got my cards in the great reading room, where it was so quiet, I could hear a pin drop (or the papers rustling). I didn't want to take a photo of this grand interior, but hopefully I will do so the next time.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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