Campaign to preserve the carnegie libraries

Manhattan branches

Half of New York City’s Carnegie branches were built in Manhattan, the most highly populated of the boroughs. Manhattan was and is part of The New York Public Library, established in 1895 from the famous Astor and Lenox Libraries and the Tilden Trust. Its branch system began in 1901 with the absorption of the New York Free Circulating Library and other smaller, independent libraries that soon followed suit.

Of the 26 Carnegies built, 22 still exist, 20 of them operating as libraries. They also happen to be the most ornate and elegant of the branches. The classically inspired group is almost uniformly three bays wide with a side bay entrance. Their first floor often features tall arches, and the three-story structures are typically limestone-clad and topped with impressive cornices. Carrere & Hastings, Babb, Cook & Willard and McKim, Mead & White designed the majority of Manhattan’s branches while Herts & Tallant, Cook & Welch and James Brown Lord designed one building each.

The Yorkville Branch was the first of the New York City Carnegie branches to open in 1902. This branch, along with the Aguilar, Chatham Square, Hamilton Grange, Harlem, Muhlenberg, the Schomburg Collection and Tompkins Square branches, is a New York City individual landmark. The St. Agnes Branch is situated in the Upper West Side-Central Park West Historic District.

Local Manhattan branch links:

• Aguilar
• Chatham Square
• Columbus
• Epiphany
• Fort Washington
• Hamilton Grange
• Harlem
• Hudson Park
• Muhlenberg
• 96th St.
• 115th St.
• 125th St.
• Rivington (no longer in operation)
• St. Agnes
• Schomburg Collection
• Seward Park
• 67th St.
• Tompkins Square
• Washington Heights
• Webster
• West 40th St. (no longer in operation)
• Yorkville
  
  

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