When (If?) The Mid-Manhattan Library Is Ultimately Sold As Part Of NYPL’s Central Library Plan, How Big A Building Would Replace It?

Mid-Manhattan Library and behind it 10 East 40th Street on left and 445 Fifth Avenue on right. Would these three buildings be torn down to put up a very much larger building?

As people should know by now, an important part of the New York Public Library’s Central Library Plan (CLP) is the sale of its very heavily used Mid-Manhattan Library.  In fact, there is plenty of reason to suspect that a goal of selling off that building may be the main reason that the NYPL is pursuing the CLP.  We’ll come back to that momentarily.

If the CLP goes through and the Mid-Manhattan library is sold, how big would the building be that replaces it?

Testimony delivered by Don Christensen at Assemblyman Micah Kellner’s June 27, 2013 hearing on the sale of New York City public libraries provided information and grounds for analysis to strongly suspect that 10 East 40th Street, the building directly adjacent to the Mid-Manhattan building to the east, is likely to be torn down and its lot combined with Mid-Manhattan’s to build something very big.  As Mr. Chistensen pointed out, 10 East 40th Street is one of the “shaded buildings” on the Mid-Town Rezoning map “built prior to 1961 and . .  particularly targeted for replacement with more modern and taller buildings.”  The map Mr. Chistensen provided with his testimony appears below.  See: Tuesday, July 2, 2013, Startling Testimony at State Assembly Hearing on NYC Library Sales.

This was "ATTACHMENT D" to Mr. Christensen's testimony- click to enlarge

Noticing New York included information and grounds for analysis to strongly suspect that another building next to the Mid-Manhattan Library, 445 Fifth Avenue, immediately adjacent to the south, would also be torn down and combined with the Mid-Manhattan site.  See: Saturday, June 15, 2013, SIBL, NYPL's Science, Industry and Business Library Sold At An Unreported Loss To The Public (And an Elucidating Sideways Look At The BAM South Library Real Estate Games).

The only thing that makes it truly worth tearing down big buildings is building much bigger ones.  So one way to speculate about how big the replacement building for Mid-Manhattan would be is to imagine all three of these buildings torn down and replaced by a single building proportionately much bigger than the already very big 10 East 40th Street and 445 Fifth Avenue buildings, themselves much bigger than the Mid-Manhattan building. (See the picture at the beginning of this article and below.)

Again, Mid-Manhattan Library and behind it 10 East 40th Street on left and 445 Fifth Avenue on right- Click to enlarge?

Another way of getting a sense of how big a building might replace the Mid-Manhattan Library is to judge by the colossal amount of energy and resources that are very strangely being devoted to pushing the Central Library Plan through.  When all is said and done, the Central Library Plan provides virtually no benefit for the NYPL or to the public it is mean to serve.  More correctly, it should probably said that it is destined to end with the NYPL significantly worse off than it started off.  In the end:

    •    The NYPL will have reduced the space of two major libraries of significant stature, Mid-Manhattan and the Science, Industry and Business Library, representing an aggregate of about 300,000 square feet of library space, and squeeze the those two libraries into just 80,000 square feet in the back quarters of what has hitherto been the 42nd Street Central Reference Library, a world-class institution.

    •    In that process another 80,000 square feet of space will be sacrificed and lost, the fabled research stacks of the Central Reference Library, an integral part of the building’s Carrère and Hastings design, structure and function.

    •    As Mr. Christensen's testimony also pointed out, the entirety of the space that is intended to replace the Mid-Manhattan and the Science, Industry and Business libraries will be accessed through one small door deep within the 42nd Street building.

    •    The shrunken space housing the remnants of the two former libraries of stature will be non-expandable.  This is despite the fact that:

    •        SIBL was completed (and sized) at 160,000 square feet in1996, only a few years ago, and
    •        the previous plan for Mid-Manhattan, last in effect in 2003, called for almost doubling its size by adding another 117,000 square feet.

    •    Much of the research collection of the Central Reference Library will become highly inaccessible as it is moved to storage in Princeton, New Jersey.

    •    The circulating and reference collections of Mid-Manhattan and the Science, Industry and Business Library will also be banished and, if kept at all, will become relatively inaccessible because the only way to shrink the two large libraries into such small space is to get rid of books and librarians.  That is why the NYPL is so busy working hard to get rid of books in preparation for the envisioned move.

All of this will be done at enormous cost, effort and years of construction.

The plan has still not yet been completely designed or finally costed out, but it is expected to run at least $350 million in public money, of which at least $150 million will be taxpayer dollars, altogether a likely a net negative for the NYPL after selling its real estate.  Would anyone care to guess whether $425 million is actually the more likely neighborhood of the figure that these total expenses come in at?

The CLP was conceived in 2006, perhaps 2005, according to NYPL Chief Operating Officer David Offensend.  It won’t be completed until at least 2018.  Are these things ever completed on schedule or on budget?

The deal will probably be a “stop-watch deal” (with the NYPL selling Mid-Manhattan only after completion of the CLP construction) so the condition of the real estate market and what Mid-Manhattan can eventually be sold for, the ultimately likely loss to the NYPL, will not be known for years.

And what will be the ultimate benefit for the NYPL of all this shrinkage and reduction of resources at such enormous expense?: Running much smaller shrunken-down library space with fewer librarians and fewer books will cost less to operate. . . .

. . .  Really?  Why go through such gyrations to achieve a purpose that is essentially antithetical to providing library services?  With money that could have been used to provide library services?

There really is no reason to be jumping through all these hoops, mobilizing such terrific energy, spending all these public and taxpayer dollars for such a stupid result.  That’s what ultimately causes us to infer, of necessity, that the building that replaces Mid-Manhattan is going to be a very, very big building.  Something must be fueling all this silliness. What else could it be?

(FYI: Citizens Defending Libraries has a petition now with over 13,000 signatures, most of them online, opposing the sale and shrinkage of New York City libraries to create real estate deals.)

Startling Testimony at State Assembly Hearing on NYC Library Sales

This Noticing New York post will do something unprecedented: I will turn over most of what you will be reading here to someone else's voice:  the startling hearing testimony of researcher Donald Christensen.  I doubt that you will be disappointed!

I'd like to think that, even if readers will be reading work authored by another, they will feel as if they they are reading one of  Noticing New York's better articles.  I hesitate to make that assertion because you might think I am trying to flatter myself: The insights, research upon which they are based, and the way everything is expressed in what you will be reading is superb.

State Assemblyman Kellner's Hearing on Sale of NYC Libraries

Above, Assembly Members Micah Kellner and Joan Millman listen to NYPL President Anthony Marx's testimony.  Photo from Jonathan Barkey

Last Thursday, June 27, 2013, Assembly Member Micah Kellner, Chair of the Committee on Libraries and Education Technology, held a public hearing at 250 Broadway in  Manhattan on the sale of New York City library buildings to private developers.  The better part of what you be reading constituting this post is the stunning testimony delivered at that hearing by Donald Christensen, a professional researcher.

The hearing was very well attended with many of those attending testifying quite eloquently although some, like Mr. Christensen, set a very high bar.  Citizens Defending Libraries and The Committee to Save the New York Public Library were among those testifying with a slew of others about the sell-off and shrinkage of libraries around the city, including the Central Library Plan, Donnell and libraries in Brooklyn. Testimony concerned the cost of these plans, the proposed destruction of the historic, irreplaceable assets, and how the plans do not benefit the public.  The sell-offs resulting in shrinkage of the library system and assets owned by the public include destruction of the famed research stacks of the 42nd Street library on Fifth Avenue behind the lions, Patience and Fortitude.  I personally testified as part of Citizens Defending Libraries of which I am a co-founder.  Testimony from Citizens Defending Libraries, including mine, is available at CDL's web pages)

Overall, between 50 to 60 people signed up to testify.  Though the room was filled to capacity (about 130 people were there) with every seat taken, not all of those who signed up to testify made it to the hearing and some who made it to the hearing to testify were not able to wait until the end of the day to deliver their testimony orally (though they were able to submit their testimony in writing): The hearing, scheduled for 10:30 AM, got underway before 11:00 AM and lasted until just after 6:00 PM.  Other than the library heads, Anthony W. Marx, president of the New York Public Library, and Linda E. Johnson, president of the Brooklyn Public Library, nobody who spoke on Thursday spoke in favor of selling the libraries.

Press Coverage

Times story on Marx and the hearing

A most detailed account of the hearing from Susan Bernofsky can be found here: Friday, June 28, 2013, Saving the New York Public Library.  Video of it is now up on the Assembly’s website where a transcript will also be supplied.

The best news for opponents of the library sales was that the Times coverage, by Robin Pogrebin and prominently featured in Friday’s main art section (see above), raises the hope that these issues are beginning to get the kind of coverage they deserve.  Recently, Times reporter Joseph Berger worked mention of Citizens Defending Libraries (and accompanying link) into an updating story about the improved prospects for survival of the Pacific Branch library (Berger has also tracked the fate of libraries in an updating story about school sales were thwarted by community opposition).  That mention was a helpful adjustment for the fact that reference to Citizens Defending Libraries had been removed from the earlier Times front page story about city libraries and schools being sold.

Ms. Progrebin’s latest article didn’t refer specifically to Citizens Defending Libraries but its theme was how NYPL president Marx has needed to retreat in the face of questions about why the NYPL was proceeding with an obviously very expensive Central Library Plan when it did not yet have a design or cost calculations.  See: Critics Prompt New Review of Library Plan, June 27, 2013.

Landmark West! emailed the Times story picking out what may be its most telling line:

Mr. Kellner questioned, “If we don’t have a design yet and we don’t know cost, why has the N.Y.P.L. applied for and been granted building permits?”

The math in Marx's statements about how he was calculating that there was public benefit to the CLP also did not seem to work out unless one ignores and does not treat enormous taxpayer expenditures ($150 million) as being an expense.  In my testimony, which followed President Marx's, I offered to comment on Mr. Marx's remarks but that didn't happen, given time constraints and the long list of those signed up to speak next.

Lack of Response By Library Officials to the Public 

I would have pointed out that Mr. Marx said that the NYPL was listening and responding to public to make adjustments to its Central Library Plan, but that when Citizens Defending Libraries met with the NYPL's Chief Operating Officer, David Offensend, (May 30, 2013), we asked Offensend to describe in exactly what ways the NYPL has incorporated public feedback in updating its plans and the list he gave in a two and half minute response was sparse, although he also emphasized that the NYPL didn't have a "final design" and was "still working at it with the architects":

 •      The NYPL will "use more of the historic stack materials in the new design" to "memorialize what they look like"
 •      "People have expressed concern about how people will travel through the building" and accommodation of the larger number of people the NYPL has spent time "designing what the architects call the circulation, meaning how people move around and through the building" with "considerably more square footage open to the public. .  so we are working hard on that"
•      Signage and wayfinding, ways to improve the visitor experience.
•      The NYPL, as of September,  "agreed to a build out a portion of the Bryant Park stack to maintain many more books on site"

When we get to Mr. Christensen's testimony, remember the points above about the flow of pedestrians and crowds through the building and signage, wayfinding and visitor experience.

During his June 27th hearing testimony Marx also mentioned the accommodation to critics of building out the stacks under Bryant Park (this was actually the first of the items when Offensend `ticked' off his list).   The problem was that at the same meeting where Offensend cited this as being a revision to the plan in response to public comment he contradicted himself with an earlier statement describing the build-out as being part of the original plan.

He said that the plan had begun by 2006, perhaps as early as 2005, and that in discussion there had been concern about the amount of space available.  He said the NYPL hired the Gensler architectural firm, which was looking at the space issue and that the firm said, "The thing to do to create the right amount of space is to remove the stacks, which is the main thing here, to create that much space."  Offensend continued immediately (emphasis supplied):

And the librarians were like, well, `we'd have to figure out where to put the books.'  And we did have that second level underneath Bryant Park, and we did calculate that, fully built out, it could accommodate about the same number of stacks that were in the stacks.  So that was part of the original plan.  The librarians were very excited about it because they said that nobody uses those books very much, anyway.

So was building out the stacks actually part of the original plan or one of the NYPL's very few ostensible responses to public feedback?   I offer the above Offensend quotes without endorsement of whether I think the information stated in them is true, only to note the information given and the contradictions.  The other problem with building out the supplemental stacks under Bryant Park now in order to accommodate more books is that use of those stacks was always, for decades, the plan to accommodate future growth and needs, not present ones.  It was supposed to accommodate at least another ten years of future need. . . .

. . .  One other thing that COO David Offensend conceded at our May 30th meeting with him was that if the NYPL's calculations about space needs were incorrect, or if with growth in the future the consolidated Central Libray Plan library needed to be expanded, there was no capacity to accommodate such expansion.

Had I continued my testimony at the hearing, I would have pointed out that the NYPL's lack of response to public reaction, together with Tony Marx's math that seems to assume that taxpayer dollars spent on the CLP don't have to be calculated as a cost in any cost benefit analysis, indicate a disdain for the public.  Rather similarly, in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Public Library does not wish to accept Citizens Defending Libraries as a representative of the public while the "Friends" of the library group has been given a lead role on the Brooklyn Heights Library "Community Advisory Committee" to represent the community even when that "Friends" group apparently believes it is never allowed to disagree or take issue with the BPL. 

Elected Representatives Present at the Hearing

Testimony from all the following elected officials was all highly critical of the library real estate deals: City Council members Tish James and Steve Levin, State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, State Senator Bill Perkins (by his representative, Michael Henry Adams).  Those Assembly Members asking the library heads for information, including Kellner and Millman, were also highly skeptical of the planned sales.

Reportedly Dejected Ms. Johnson After Hearing

BPL's Linda Johnson seemed to attempt a friendly conversation with Councilman Levin out by the elevators right before he went in to testify critically about the BPL’s sales.  Word is that the BPL's Linda Johnson was morose and cranky as she rode down in the elevator leaving the hearing, complaining about all the opposition to her planned library sales.  She was headed for a meeting of the BPL trustees later that evening.  There at that 5:30 PM meeting she was greeted by community activists who held up signs about saving the Pacific Branch.  They stayed for most of the trustees meeting, but, according to the reports I received, unless Ms. Johnson saved her remarks for the very end, she never acknowledged the activists present, nor told the trustees anything about that day’s hearing.

Through To the Bitter End

While the Times picked out the testimony of Edmund Morris, the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning writer and biographer of Theodore Roosevelt, who testified early in the day, as being of exceptional interest, as indeed it was, there was superb testimony throughout the day and you had to wait until the very end to hear some of the best of it, including Mr. Christensen’s.

Mr. Christensen was on one of the very last panels with former librarian Rita Bott who also provided some especially insightful testimony that I should perhaps publish in another follow-up.  A coincidence: It turned out that, as a librarian, Ms. Bott had assisted Mr. Christiansen with research years ago but they had never formally met.

Because the testimony from Mr. Christensen that follows below is as long as it is I have not observed the usual Noticing New York convention of indenting to indicate that the text appearing is supplied by someone else.  Also, to assist the reader with some "wayfinding" guideposts I have myself provided some subheading interjected between soem of the paragraphs.
 
Here then, without further ado, is the testimony (video available at CDL's YouTube Channel) Mr. Christensen presented. 

TESTIMONY FOR COMMITTEE ON LIBRARIES AND EDUCATION TECHNOLOGY HEARING JUNE 27, 2013 PRESENTED BY DONALD CHRISTENSEN

Thank you for this opportunity to provide information I have concerning the topic of this public hearing.   This hearing serves as a unique platform to create a public record of the facts, concerns and probable impact of the library's radical plans for reducing ready access to the library's resources for members of the public that the charter of the library promises to serve.   Perhaps this public record will be reviewed by the people who are orchestrating this radical - and destructive - plan because until today there has been virtually no input allowed from anyone outside the small cadre of people intent on a singular agenda that has little to do with the goals that until recently guided this once-great institution.

Going Back In Time: The NYPL Standards For Serving The Public That Used To Apply

To prepare for today's testimony I read through the papers of the former Director of the library during the years of the formation of the Mid-Manhattan Library as it exists today at 40th Street and Fifth Avenue.  His name was John Mackenzie Cory.   He was on the staff of the library from the early 1950s until the late 1970s.   All of his papers covering the transformation of the Mid-Manhattan building from the department store known as Arnold Constable are preserved in a large file box in the manuscript department of the Main Library building.  That collection of papers includes all the correspondence, personal memos of everything from telephone conversations to notes gathered at lunch meetings, copies of internal reports from various Trustee committees, copies of legal interpretations concerning the Mid-Manhattan property as a real estate investment as well as various "white papers" and "confidential reports" that define the sequence of events and thoughts that show the path for the development of that facility.  The records of Directors of the Library are sealed from public view for 20 years.   That means we won't be able to access such records of the current director and those of the recent past to find out exactly what they have been up to for another 20 years, in which case it might be too late.   But we have Mr. Cory's papers and they reveal a lot.   I also had the opportunity to review the minutes of the Branch Library Council, which oversees a part of the actions of the branch libraries, including Mid-Manhattan, from the years 1949 through 2002.   Those minutes and the other papers in the Branch Library Council file box at the manuscript department also reveal some interesting things.
 
While I went through these papers I took copious notes and had copies made of salient documents.    Unfortunately, I cannot share with you copies of those documents.   I have them with me, but I cannot copy them or quote from them for any type of publication (including the 20 copies of this testimony) without permission of the library.   I have not been able to secure permissions.  So I will have to paraphrase what I found in those papers.

There are two basic issues I'd like to cover today in the short amount of time I have.   First, the goals and intentions of the Mid-Manhattan library as defined by the people of John Mckenzie Cory's era in comparison to what the current regime wants to deliver to the people of New York.   Second, to look at the Mid-Manhattan property as piece of real estate.   As everyone in this room knows, this whole current plan is really a real estate story, apparently designed to make someone really, really rich while impoverishing the cultural and intellectual texture of the city of New York.

Why Mid-Mahattan Was Developed And Serves The Public The Way That It Does

First, why Mid-Manhattan was developed.    Since the late 1940s the Library wanted to move the small circulating facility out of the main building so that the main building could concentrate on the research aspect of the library that was the basis of its formation as opposed to the goals of the branch libraries.    They first considered other ways of expanding the space within the main library.   For example, there was a plan drawn up to tunnel under the terraces surrounding the building.   That plan was scratched because they wanted a general circulating/general research library that was both visible and easily accessible.   They did not want to hide it within the marble fortress of the Main Library.   Also, they wanted a facility at a location nearby the main building.   The idea was that if someone's research need was beyond the resources of a general research library, a patron could readily be sent to the main library and have their research needs handled immediately.
 
In 1961, the building housing the Arnold Constable department store came on the market.   The department store did not own the building and never had.   The store was just a tenant and in 1961 they had a lease that would not expire until 1979.   Still, the library bought the building with the specific intention of taking over the building in 1979.   The department store went out of business in 1975 and vacated the building.   In 1967 the department store vacated the top three floors of the building and the first manifestation of the Mid Manhattan library branch opened on those top three floors in 1971.   After the department store completely vacated the building, a series of recommendations were made about how to use the space.   There was a lot of pressure to rent out the first floor for commercial use to get money to run the library.   But a stronger faction within the library argued that such a thing would go against the goal of making the library fully visible from the street and readily accessible right off the sidewalk.   To make it even more inviting they increased the size of the window on the façade of the building so that people could see in and see that it was a welcoming place to enter.

Another option that was rejected was the possibility of purchasing the Columbia University Club building on West 43rd Street, which was on the market for a time prior to the full expansion into Constable building.   That option was rejected because the 43rd Street location was not visible enough.

After the commitment to the Mid-Manhattan along with its street level openness and easy accessibility, millions of visitors found that the concept has been very successful.

Accessibility and Burying Replacement Library Space Where The Research Stacks Now Exist 

But now we are faced with a different idea.   This idea strives to hide the general library deep in the bowels of a formidable building behind three massive walls of marble and far, far away from ready access from the street.   This idea more closely matches the idea of burrowing under the terraces that an earlier - and wiser - generation of library leaders rejected as inappropriate for serving the general public.   And how will this hidden facility welcome people into it or even let people know it is there?   I doubt very much that they will put a sign over Stephen Schwarzman's name on the building to tell  people what they might find inside.

As far as accessibility goes, this plan is a nightmare.   I counted how many stairs and how many strides it would take to get to that location.   Now,  I might point out, it takes about 10 strides at the Mid-Manhattan library to get from the street into the actual library space - and it's on one level.    In contrast, you have to climb 29 stairs and you have to take 62 strides to get from the sidewalk to the first door of the building's entrance.   Then you have to take another 88 strides to get from the first door, traveling through two more doors to finally get to the top of Sir Norman Foster's flamboyant and vulgar staircase to look up at a seven-story high empty atrium and then climb down more stairs to reach the main level of the so-called library.   It would take half a day to get to and from that space and only if you are in good shape.

(Added by NNY 7/4/'13) NYPL Architectural rendering of second and last of two similarly sized small doors that would lead to what was formerly the research stack space

But before you could get to Sir Norman's atrium, you would be forced to pass through one small door to get into what is now the Gottsman exhibition space and then through another small door at the other end of the Gottsman space before finally getting to Sir Norman's staircase when to  begin your descent.  Those two small doors supposedly are to serve both as the ingress and egress to and from the atrium space.   At the Mid-Manhattan building, in contrast,  there are three doors to enter and in different locations there are five doors to exit.  And even then there are sometimes lines to get in or out.  But Sir Norman's design doesn't take such traffic flow into consideration.   Maybe Sir Norman doesn't know what it takes to get a million people a year in and out of a building space if there is only one door for both paths of action.   The library has produced a video* that shows how easy it would be to get to the Sir Norman's atrium by seeming to show you floating through these little doors like Peter Pan with no other people around and no obstructions.   In reality, it would more likely look like the army of cards in Alice in Wonderland slamming up against each other to get through the White Rabbit's little door.  I can imagine that Sir Norman doesn't have to worry about crowds of ingress and egress when he visits the library building because I'm sure he is gestured in with:  "After you, Sir Norman."   When I look at the lack of doors to accommodate any reasonable type of ingress and egress flow of people, I notice that there are spaces at the rear wall of the Astor Hall that separates the Hall from the Gottesman Exhibition Hall that could be knocked out and more doors put in.   Although the Astor Hall has an interior landmark status, I understand that the landmark definition does not extend to that back wall.   I wonder if the current leaders of the library and Sir Norman would have any problem with knocking out portions of that wall - and vandalizing that space -- once they realize that people couldn't all get in and out of the single small door that is there now?

[*   (Added by NNY 7/4/'13)  There is a five minute NYPL produced video "A First Look at NYPL's Central Library Plan" that contains the Peter Pan fly through accelerated to finish in 30 seconds (just the 30 second fly through is available here: "NYPL's accelerated Peter Pan fly through a single door.")  Viewers are cautioned that the film is very deceptive in it depiction of space and some other respects, something that Noticing New York will have to deal with in a subsequent post.  The NYPL's also has a one-minute version of the fly through on its site titled "Explore NYPL's 42nd Street Renovation."]

Certainly, the distance from the sidewalk to Sir Norman's atrium would be an insurmountable expedition for a lot of people who currently use the Mid-Manhattan location with ease.   And that doesn't even begin to address the needs of disabled people.   Will people in wheelchairs be sent on an excursion to 42nd Street and up and down ramps and elevators instead of simply traveling directly off the street like they do now at Mid-Manhattan.  Maybe the library could have Sir Norman design a sign to hang out front to express what they might really mean with this obstacle path for disabled people:  "No cripples wanted."

(Added by NNY 7/4/'13) On left: Reality, light traffic through first door.  On right: NYPL Architectural rendering of second door, and only entrance to the space meant to replace two large libraries -  Is that couple conveniently diminutive?- Click to enlarge.

(Added by NNY 7/4/'13) What it looks like when more people use another of the library's similarly sized doors

(Added by NNY 7/4/'13) NYPL rendering from the inside showing the one small single door entrance.

Sir Norman's Vision?

In short, what we are getting here is the closure of a completely open democratic space and in its place we're getting a hard-to-get-to and hard-to-access area that's really designed to keep people out for elitist use by people who have the time to get there and the knowledge of where it's hidden.   And let's be frank here, who could look at that huge atrium space and not see it for what it really is:   A dramatic party room to be used occasionally by a handful of rich people.   All fully equipped with a Sir Norman staircase to enter onto and sashay down so that party goers gathered below can admire the clothes of other rich people.
  
And, by the way, why couldn't the library leadership find an American architect?   After all, the trustees of the original building were able to find American architects.  But I guess it's less fun to say "I'm taking the B train  to Union Square to meet with the architects" than to say "I have to go to London to meet with Sir Norman."

Lost, Inaccessible Library Materials (Including Materials On The NYPL Itself)

This whole Sir Norman dynamic sums up the elitist tone of this entire Central Plan.  This new space isn't for the little people.  It just another club room for today's moneyed oligarchs, their avatars and sycophants.
And to claim that the traditional use of the Main Library as a superb research center has been maintained even though most of the books have been moved elsewhere - like New Jersey - is a total lie.  While I have used that research library for over 30 years, my recent experience shows exactly how wrong-headed and dangerous this method is proving to be.   When you go to the main library, you don't know what materials are on-site or off-site.   The on-line catalog accessible via the internet at home is of little help.  You can try to order off-site materials via the internet, but the library cannot promise when the materials will be ready to be examined.   In fact, if you ask for them to arrive on a certain date, you cannot ask whether or not they will be there until AFTER the date is passed!  (See ATTACHMENT A.)    In addition, because there is no librarian to assist you in navigating through the search process, you are often sent the wrong materials.   Moreover, a lot of materials have already been lost.   For example, I wanted to look at the New York Public Library's Annual Reports from 1958 through 1962 to see what was said about the purchase of the building that is today Mid-Manhattan.   Well, those volumes have been lost. (See ATTACHMENT B.)  I had to be sent to the Butler Library at Columbia University to look at them. (See ATTACHMENT C.)  The New York Public Library has LOST the documents of their own history.   Tragically, it's not too surprising since the current leadership of the library apparently has total contempt for the treasures in their care as they throw these materials up and down the New Jersey Turnpike in a cavalier fashion.  I can report with confidence that the librarians working at the Main Library are completely frustrated with this nonsensical system that will guarantee further deterioration of the collection as it travels back and forth from storage in another state instead of just traveling up and down on small elevators from the stacks.   And why?  Again so that a few rich people can have another dramatic party room?

ATTACHMENT A- click to enlarge

ATTACHMENT B- click to enlarge

ATTACHMENT C- click to enlarge

Delving Into Real Estate Deal Aspects of Central Library Plan

The successful and ideal profile of the existing Mid-Manhattan building as fulfilling the goals of being a visible, accessible, democratically welcoming center located right on the street compared to the hidden, inaccessible, elitist nature of the proposed plan to move within the Main Building  butts up against the reality of the real estate of the Mid-Manhattan building.    This prime property is ripe for development.   But who would get it?  Who is poised to make the big money with its ownership?  But more importantly, why should the library give it up since, obviously, they could never be able to recapture such real estate if the nature of libraries changes again at some time in the future.  Plus, considering the library's past failures in successfully getting good prices for the real estate they have already sold, why should they be trusted not to throw this one away as well?

The unique placement of the Mid-Manhattan buidling finds it at the edge of the Bloomberg initative calling for the updating of buildings within what is called the East Midtown Rezoning Target Zone.   Attached is a map of that area. (See ATTACHMENT D.)  Shown on the map are shaded buildings that were built prior to 1961 and are particularly targeted for replacement with more modern and taller buildings.   You will see on this map that the building directly adjacent to the Mid-Manhattan building to the east is one of those shaded buildings - 10 East 40th Street.  The Mid-Manhattan building occupies 2-8 East 40th Street.   The library building itself is NOT within the Target Zone, but, again, the adjoining property is.

ATTACHMENT D- click to enlarge

 The Wohls
 
10 East 40th Street is owned by a group headed by real estate mogul Larry A. Wohl. Wohl's father and Wohl's father's partner Norman Levy bought 10 East 40th in the mid 70s.    The two buildings - the library building and 10 East 40th - has a long and complex interwoven history that is too complicated to get into here. The two buildings were built by the same man - Frederick Vanderbilt - who owned them until death in 1938.   There are aspects of the two buildings that overlap.  Because of this interwoven connection, Norman Levy and Wohl's father were in constant contact with John Mackenzie Cory and other library executives over one matter or another affecting both buildings.

Then in the mid 1970s after the department store decided to vacate the building and before the commitment was made to fully develop the Mid-Manhattan branch, Levy and Wohl made a very generous offer to buy the building.   This sent the library leaders to assess the situation seriously.   They drew up an analysis of 6 options, including selling the building to Levy and Wohl.   The library as well as the whole city was in dire financial straits at the time.   But in the end the library leaders took the high road.   They recognized that the building offered the best option for the goals they wanted to achieve to serve the needs of a general library.   They turned down the purchase offer to follow the ideals of the institution - visibility and accessibility, no matter what the cost.  Even though they didn't really have the money at the time.

Obviously, today if 10 East 40th could be a target for demolition and replacement with a super skyscraper, then a new building that could occupy both 10 East 40th and the Mid-Manhattan building site would make that super skyscraper even more super.   I doubt that that observation has escaped Larry Wohl.  And he has the money to do it.  In addition, Mayor Bloomberg has apparently jumped on the "tear down the Mid-Manhattan building" bandwagon.   Attached is an "agreement" from 2008 from the Mayor's office allowing the library to vacate the Mid-Manhattan building and sell it.  This so-called "agreement" looks more like a commandment than an agreement, since no one from the library signed it. (See ATTACHMENT E.)

   Bloomberg's August 2008 Document To Decommission Mid-Manhattan Library

Has that observation of linking the two properties of Mid-Manhattan and 10 East 40 escaped the notice of the current leaders of the library?  I doubt it.  But, would they stick to the principles that their predecessors under the leadership of John Mackenzie Cory showed when they turned down an offer of ready cash from Wohl's father in order to fulfill the goals of the institution of reaching out to the users of the public library by having a space visible and easily accessible.  Sadly, I doubt that as well.

They'd rather have the hidden Sir Norman party room kept pristine by keeping people out through three barriers of marble walls and time-consuming journeys to keep it available only to people with a lot of time and cut out such groups as lunchtime users who now run quickly in and out of Mid-Manhattan.

I don't know if Larry Wohl has maintained the type of constant contact with today's library leadership that his father and Norman Levy enjoyed with John Mackenzie Cory.  We won't know for another 20 years when we will be able to examine the papers of Mr. Marx and his advisers.

Wohl's Writing On The Wall?  

But the other day I got a little clue.   Walking past the two buildings where they  join on East 40th Street -I noticed that a large advertising sign for Mr. Wohl's leasing corporation, Joseph P. Day Realty, was announcing space for lease in 10 East 40th.   The sign extends far into the side of the library building.   (See ATTACHMENTS F and G.) This sign, in other words, encroaches on the library property, apparently with impunity.   Is Mr. Wohl already assuming ownership of the library building?  Are the leaders of the library already assuming that that will be the case?

ATTACHMENT F

ATTACHMENTS G

Is it much of a leap to imagine how much richer Wohl would become with control of that corner of real estate?   And is it much of a leap to imagine how much less access the people of New York will have to library services as a result?
 
As the library continues to give away its real estate to make others rich, the losers are the people of New York.

* * * *

And that, dear friends of  Noticing New York, is the startling testimony that was presented by professional researcher Donald Christensen at Micah Kellner's June 27, 2013 Assembly committee hearing about the sale of libraries in New York City.

Video is below or, best way to see it, available at CDL's YouTube Channel.

On Charlie Rose NYPL Trustee Stephen Schwarzman Confirms Suspicions: His $100 Million To The Library Was Linked To NYPL’s Real Estate Plans

NYPL trustee Stephen A.Schwarzman appearing on Charlie Rose to discuss, among other things, the NYPL's Central Library Plan.  Is that pinch to illustrate how the libraries get smaller as he sells off their real estate?  Keep reading.

(Correction appended 07/02/2013)

One of the great mysteries about the New York Central Library plan is why on earth would the NYPL’s trustees want to approve the NYPL’s giving up substantial library system assets and vastly shrinking the library system’s space, spending hundreds of millions of public dollars, perhaps in the end as much as a half billion dollars, to do so?  Is it true that the only possible explanation is that the there are library trustees interested in seeing the real estate plans go forward, no matter the cost to implement the plans or the lack of benefit to the public?

Wednesday night NYPL trustee Stephen Schwarzman, head of Blackstone Capital, a major investment and real estate firm, confirmed on Charlie Rose the interest he had, going back to 2008, in seeing the Central Library real estate deals go forward at that time when they were launched.  See: See: Charlie Rose: With Stephen Schwarzman, Wednesday, June 19, 2013.

NYPL Real Estate Deals

In March 2008 Schwarzman committed $100 million to the NYPL.  When Rose on Wednesday night’s show asked Schwarzman about his standards for that money going to the NYPL and the negotiations that might have taken place, Schwarzman said that when “the head of the library came over to visit me [about the $100 million] as these things tend to work” (Schwarzman referred to “numerous meetings” on the plan) and that he, Schwarzman , therefore “knew how they were going to spend it . . .to reconfigure the library system.”

The Rose interview doesn’t provide greater specificity than that with respect to exactly when all these discussions took place, but, indeed, at the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008 a lot was happening at the NYPL in terms of its real estate plans.  November 7th is when it was abruptly disclosed to the public that, after a secretive process, the beloved Donnell Library had been sold.  That five-story, 97,000 square foot library on Manhattan’s 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues across from MoMA was sold for an absurdly low figure, netting the NYPL only $39 million.  The 7,381 square foot penthouse apartment in the 50-story building now going up at that site is being marketed for far more, $60 million.  There will be a “replacement” Donnell of only 28,000 square feet that will be mostly underground and largely bookless.  It might finally be built by 2015.  See: Monday, May 27, 2013, More Thoughts On Valuation And What The NYPL Should Have Received As Recompense For The Public When It Sold The Donnell Library and Friday, May 24, 2013, Previews Of The Proposed New Donnell Library: The NYPL Unveils Its Version Of The “Silk Purse” Libraries It Envisions For Our Future.

Extent of Blackstone's Real Estate and Other Investment Interests

Why should we note with interest Schwarzman's admission of the linkage of that $100 million to the real estate plans?  (He describes the plans as “terrific” and designed to put the NYPL in “better financial shape.”)

Because Schwarzman’s Blackstone Capital is involved in real estate and investments creating all sorts of possibilities of conflicts of interest.  And because Blackstone is so huge those possible conflicts are huge.

Albeit there was a lot of boasting and associated PR during the Rose show intended to make Schwarzman look good, some of which may need to be discounted, but at the top of the show, by way of introduction Charlie Rose began with the following information about Blackstone: 

Rose: . . .  it is now the world's largest alternative investment firm with over $200 billion under management.

Further into the show there was this exchange:

Rose: I think you're the largest real estate investor in the world, aren't you?

Schwarzman: That's true.  (Nodding)

During the show, working from a list in front of him where he was crossing things off, Rose clarified with Schwarzman that through Blackstone Schwarzman was involved in the following seven lines of business:

    •    private equity,

    •    hedge fund,

    •    real estate

    •    a large credit business that does highly leveraged credit,

    •    a mergers and acquisition group

    •    a troubled company restructuring business,

    •    Raising money for other people in the alternative asset classes from institutional investors.

Not only is Blackstone the “largest real estate investor in the world,” Schwarzman says during the program that Blackstone is similarly preeminent in hedge funds:

Schwarzman: We are the largest investors in the world in hedge funds.

Are hedge funds notorious these days for making a lot of money?  Schwarzman says his private equity business is bigger:

Schwarzman:     … Private equity is a bigger business… The rates on return on private equity tend to be much higher.

And when Schwarzman speaks of the $100 million to the NYPL as being connected to the 1007/2008 real estate plans it is worth thinking about what he next told Rose about making those private equity profits:

Schwarzman:     . .  And the reason is that you have control of businesses or control of real estate. You can change the management. You can change the business strategy, and it's not passive. 

How Readily Conflicts of Interest Can Crop Up

It would therefore be easy for Schwarzman and his Blacktsone Group to have conflicts of interest.  Actually, it would be perhaps be hard to avoid them.

One example of how easily conflicts of interest potentially crop up is that in the spring of 2007, the same year that Donnell was sold by the NYPL Peter Slatin wrote speculatively in The Street envisioning that Schwarzman would be one of the buyers of Orient-Express Hotels, the company to whom it was announced the library would be sold.  And Slatin envisioned that Schwarzman would buy it partnering with Sternlicht of Starwood Hotels, the company that wound up actually buying Donnell when the dust settled.  He imagined a celebratory scene respecting the purchase: “Steve Schwarzman and Barry Sternlicht are sitting down for burgers” at the 21 Club with Andrew Davis of Von Essen Hotels celebrating their purchase of Orient-Express Hotels.  Interestingly, the 21 Club, adjacent to Donnell, factored in prominently with its purchase.  See: Getting All Aboard the Orient-Express, 03/26/07.

Who knows if there was something particular that stimulated Slatin’s speculative imagination coming up with so many odd prescient details, but the idea that what he imagined or any variation of it could actually easily have happened emphasizes the concern about where conflict of interest might lead.

Another example of relationships that point to the ease with which conflict could crop up is that the Chief Operating Officer of the NYPL, David Offensend, came from Wall Street and is a cofounder of Evercore Partners, a firm that might be described as sort of a boutique spin-off of Schwarzman’s Blackstone (two key partners, Roger Altman and Austin M. Beutner, are Blackstone alumni).  Offensend is the most important employee of the NYPL in terms of implementing its real estate plans and he describes the NYPL’s plan as originating back in 2006, perhaps as far back as 2005.  Offensend began working for the the NYPL in 2004.

Not that Schwarzman and Offensend are the only significant individuals with respect to the making of real estate plans at the NYPL.  According to Vartan Gregorian, who became the NYPL’s president in 1981, he put NYPL trustee and real estate developer Marshall Rose in charge of the supervision of the entire real estate holdings of the NYPL.  Mr. Rose has continued to handle the NYPL’s real estate ever since, even during a period of time that he was chairman of the NYPL’s trustees.

It is harder to ignore these concerns when real estate deals Mr. Schwarzman says are intended to put the NYPL in “better financial shape” seem to impoverish it instead:  Things like the sale of Donnell or the Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL).  That library, in the old B. Altman department store building  was completed in1996 as one of the projects under Mr. Rose’s guidance at a cost of $100 million.  Last year the NYPL, calling virtually no attention to the fact, sold off 87% of its space for $60.8 million.  Was the publicly paid for library that recently cost so much worth now worth that little?  See: Saturday, June 15, 2013, SIBL, NYPL's Science, Industry and Business Library Sold At An Unreported Loss To The Public (And an Elucidating Sideways Look At The BAM South Library Real Estate Games).

Schwarzman's Purpose on Wednesday Night?

Why was Schwarzman on Charlie Rose Wednesday night?  He was on Rose once before, but it was years ago, in 2006.  It could be that the Central Library Plan is running into difficulty, encountering opposition, and he was there to give it a PR boost.  This could be particularly important at this moment because this coming week the selling off and shrinkage of New York City libraries will be the subject of a hearing by the New York State Assembly Committee on Libraries and Education Technology on Thursday June 27, 2013 (10:30 a.m. Assembly Hearing Room 1923, 19th Floor, 250 Broadway, Manhattan).  See:  Subject: The Sale of Public Library Buildings in New York City/Purpose: To examine the practice of selling public library buildings to private developers and the impact that sale has on the library and the services it provides.

Relying on Charlie Rose? 

Charlie Rose is a notoriously soft interviewer who compliantly works with his interviewees to support them in putting out their PR in exactly the way they want to put it out.  This can involve being sycophantically servile to those with power and sometimes that means that misinformation is promulgated uncorrected.   I’ve previously written in Noticing New York about how Rose put himself in harness to promote real estate developer Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards ambitions.  See:  Monday, April 2, 2012, Charlie Rose Does Infomercial For Forest City Ratner.

Bruce Ratner partnered with Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov on Atlantic Yards and in that earlier Noticing New York Article I observed:

Rose's cavalier, jokey exchange with Ratner about Prokhorov may some day come back to haunt him. Ratner joked that Prokhorov almost became president of Russia. Prokhorov has long been one of the insiders who get along with Putin. Most interpret his feint at a run for president as an effort to deflect real opposition to Putin, but Rose wasn't doing a serious international affairs interview so he simply played along.

It turned out that one Charlie Rose show promoting Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards was apparently not enough and a few months later Rose did another, this time hosting not only Ratner but also the Russian oligarch, and as a softening measure Prokhorov brought along his sister Irina.  (See: Monday, October 08, 2012, On Charlie Rose, uninformed sycophancy redux; host lets Ratner spin, claim arena was gift to Brooklyn, admit working the levers of government "in the traditional way").  This show, promoting the so-called “Barclays” center as an entertainment venue, did find Rose obsequiously joking with the oligarch about Russian politics.
      
Rose’s show can be informative (misinformative too) and, obviously, much of what I am writing here is drawing upon worthwhile information from the Rose Schwarzman interview.

Schwarzman The Compassionate Romneyite 

Later in the interview we learn from one of Rose’s inquiries that Schwarzman is a “a Republican” who has been  “a strong supporter of Republican candidates including Governor Romney” and, Rose implies, one who has problems with President Obama and the way Obama is handling the American economy.  We also find out that Schwarzman believes the current United States tax system should be replaced with a “flat tax” (like Russia! he points out) although he allows that in the engineering of such a massive overhaul others could advocate for progressivity of the tax rates.  Schwarzman says he thinks that it would be more equitable and that the tax code should be made simple.  These are familiar talking points from an admitted Republican but I for one, while I would favor simplifying the tax code, don’t believe that it can ever be made “simple.”

Schwarzman may have been a Romney supporter but throughout the show Schwarzman is depicted in `compassionate conservative’ guise.  Rose starts the show by having Schwarzman talk about a scholarship program with his name that involves sending students to China and it then moves on to his affirmative charitable (“eleemosynary”) efforts to hire combat veterans.

In talking about the scholarship program orientated around creating relationships with China (“Schwarzman Scholars”) its is not immediately clear at this early point in the program that there is connection between the program and, controversial at the time, the investment by the Chinese government in Blackstone, buying 9.9% of its stock (“nonvoting” stock) when Blackstone went public in 2007.  The timing to buy into Blackstone, shortly before the financial crisis, was bad and Schwarzman admits the Chinese suffered a loss due to the downturn, but, as described by Mr. Schwarzman, the Chinese, with dividends, are almost back to even, which he describes as “not a bad outcome.”

Getting to Library Issues

The discussion of the library starts about ten minutes into Rose’s thirty minute interview of Schwarzman, a positioning that is a pretty good indicator that this was considered a highlight or prime purpose of the interview.

It begins rights after Schwarzman, talking about his military employment efforts, uses the word “eleemosynary” (i.e. `charitable') as if to cue Rose:

Rose: You gave $100 million to the library; I may have the wrong number, but it was about that.

Schwarzman: That's true.

Rose: How do you decide your philanthropic commitments?

Schwarzman: That's a great question and I am still developing the answer. I make major commitments where I see a major need.  Ah, and there are many different areas where people find need and satisfy it. I happen to like things in the educational area.  I believe that a great education is a passport to a different type of life, and particularly in the world we're living in now, it's really essential.  And if I can help in various situations how people have that boost and have that advantage, I tend to respond to that.  So, at the library we have a huge number of people- New York City, as you know, has people living here I think it's from around 140 countries, 170 countries, somewhere in that area, that the library serves, people who don't have the advantages, necessarily. Some do, but it's a place where, you know, you can take out books, you have the advantage of librarians, you have computers.  So just the opposite of what you might think, attendance at libraries is going way up.

There is a disconnect between what Schwarzman says and much of what is actually going on at the library.  While he says “you can take out books” he doesn’t mention that the NYPL has been implementing a book reduction program administered by such people as Anne L. Coristan, Vice President for Public Service, who is one of those involved in implementing the Central Library Plan: Books are not supposed to exceed 50% of shelf space, no duplicate books are supposed to appear on the shelves (even Hamlet) and “shabby” books are supposed to be thrown out even though many classics and out-of-print books don't look new.

Schwarzman talks about having “the advantage of librarians” but he doesn’t talk about NYPL’s  huge layoffs of librarians, the way they have been intimidated and de-escalated in importance even while those engaged in real estate deals at the NYPL are made more important, and an increasingly large proportion of revenues is diverted to their salaries.

He mentions that “attendance at libraries is going way up,” which it is, but does not mention the perplexing concurrent shrinkage of the libraries under the NYPL’s plans.

Deflection on Democracy Issues?

Perhaps most important, Schwarzman in his mention of “passport to a different type of life,” his conjuring up diversity with his description about people from 170 countries, his talk of `boosting’ people and giving them `advantages’ is on message to deflect the obvious criticism that selling, shrinking and defunding libraries is anti-democratic and discriminatory.   I’ve previously pointed out that deflection of such criticism is probably the reason that Schwarzman and the rest of the NYPL trustees hired Anthony Marx as the new president of the NYPL to implement these plans.  See:  Tuesday, May 14, 2013, A Consideration of Race, Equality, Opportunity and Democracy As NYC Libraries Are Sold And The Library System Shrunk And Deliberately Underfunded.

Schwarzman, the former Romney supporter, sounds studiously aware of getting across the same  talking points Marx routinely works into his speeches in this regard when he goes on to talk about “reaching all kinds of middle-income and lower-income people” (“So I really like that” he says) and serving the “ethnic mix, ah, and economic mix of lower income people.”

While libraries are truly a “vehicle for changing people's lives” there is a hint in Schwarzman’s discussions of `passports to a different type of life’ of the Republican fiction that anyone, through hard work, can elevate themselves to the ranks of the wealthy and privileged.

Name Attuned?

Redundant, or undeserved acknowledgment?  Schwarzman's name on a potential demolition project

When Rose continues, getting to the subject of the Central Library Plan (and, at the same time, Schwarzman getting his name affixed to the NYPL’s 1910 42nd Street building at Fifth Avenue that was built to house the Central Reference Library that Schwarzman’s CLP would now destroy) Rose broaches a typical concern of charitable donors: That money they give to charitable organizations may not be used for the purposes intended.  At City Council hearings at the beginning of this month NYPL president Anthony Marx and BPL president Linda Johnson addressed this concern directly with Marx saying that the NYPL cannot now make a `credible' case to NYPL donors that money given to the NYPL will not be subtracted out again in Bloomberg administration cuts.
Another concern for donors should be that what they give (for example to build the $100 million SIBL) might be squandered in real estate deals.  Lastly, there is the way evanescence of substantial gifts under the new NYPL regime that pays so little attention to history or that which was intended for posterity.  The 42nd Street Central Reference library was paid for (in addition to money from NYC taxpayers) by the Tildens and the Astors.  In inflation-adjusted terms the money Schwarzman has provided to the NYPL is a pittance compared to those who have gone before him.  The library used to have a policy against naming its buildings for living individuals.  Yet Mr. Schwarzman's name has been plastered on that library (which he would like to see destroyed) in five conspicuous locations, obliterating memory of the truer and more substantial patrons of the library that precede him.

The exchange between Rose and Schwarzman allows Schwarzman to appear modest about this naming:

Rose: So when you make that kind of commitment, what is your standard of accountability?  I mean in this case, I assume you didn't do this because you wanted your name on the building … you wanted to do this because you wanted to make a difference, and you want to make sure if you're giving that level of gift that they… the money is spent wisely.

Schwarzman: Well, the advantage here is that I knew how they were going to spend it.  And, the reason I responded to this…

Rose: That was because of negotiation that takes place?

Schwarzman: No, this is because I was on the board of the library, and they hired one of the major consulting firms to figure out how to reconfigure the library system, create a modern lending library in the main branch of the library and be able to deliver better services and put themselves in better financial shape. This is a terrific plan! And so what happened is that the head of the library came over to visit me as these things tend to work, and suggested that I give them $100 million.  They can then have a lead gift to implement their plan, so you get a multiplier of close to $1 billion.  Ah, and ah, you know, they said, by the way we'd put your name on the building. And I said sure sounds like a great thing because there'd been numerous meetings on how this program would kick off a whole reinvigoration of the library system, reaching all kinds of middle-income and lower-income people. So I really like that. I also do major support for the parochial school system in New York. Why do that?: That's an easy one. They have the same basic ethnic mix, ah, and economic mix of lower income people.  And they graduated about 99% of their kids, whereas the public schools are somewhere around 50%. So my wife and I are supporting that because it's just changes the lives of these people because they have 96% that go on to college.  And it's transformational and I've done other things around the world that haven't been disclosed that tap into that and I like education as a vehicle for changing people's lives.

Rose: And giving them opportunity?

Schwarzman: Exactly.

One note: Schwarzman frequently, haltingly interjects “ah”s into his discourse, some of which seem somewhat telling.  You can watch the video to listen for them but as a courtesy and to make it more readable I left most of them out of the transcription.

Adding Consult To Injury

Mr. Schwarzman above refers to the NYPL’s hiring of “one of the major consulting firms to figure out how to reconfigure the library system.”  One reason the major consulting firm is unidentified may be because it is Booz Allen Hamilton, hired by the NYPL to produce a 2006 report recommending consolidation and downsizing of the NYPL.  Mentioning the firm’s name on Rose could have been awkward as the firm is presently getting a level of spectacular attention that a Charlie Rose audience might find hard to overlook: It employed Edward Snowden, now in the news as an intelligence leaker or whistle-blower, to gather intelligence on Americans for the NSA.  The firm currently has a huge public relations problem on their hands.

Booz Allen Hamilton is not the only consulting firm the NYPL has hired to work on the Central Library Plan.  When doing something controversial it is good to hide behind the work of a lot of “consultants” you hire.  According to COO David Offensend the NYPL also hired the Gensler architectural firm to bless its calculations of how much it could reduce its library space and also hired McKinsey & Company in connection with its planned reductions of space and personnel.

More recently, at a May 29, 2013 Historic Districts Council panel discussion of “The Changing Face of New York City’s Public Library Systems,” Scott Sherman, contributing writer and editor of The Nation, who has been covering the changes at the NYPL, noted that journalists calling the BPL for information can no longer get through to the BPL’s own public relations staff; now they are referred out to the firm of BerlinRosen, which Mr. Sherman pointed out, says on its web site that is specializes in “crisis management.”  (Correction 07/02/'13: This article originally stated that the BPL and the NYPL had both  engaged Berlin Rosen to provide statements about library sell-offs to the public.  Mr. Sherman only said that the BPL had engaged the firm and the NYPL says that BerlinRosen is not doing work for it.)

One For All?

Berlin Rosen is issuing statements on behalf of both the BPL and the real estate developer it is dealing with on one of the library schemes the BPL is pursuing, the sale of the historic neighborhood Pacific Branch  to partially pay for the outfitting of a new library originally described as being an expansion of the Brooklyn Academy of Music.  This appeared in the Brooklyn Eagle:

Jeremy Soffin of BerlinRosen Public Affairs, representing both Two Trees Management and Brooklyn Public Library, said on Tuesday that Two Trees read a statement into the record "talking about its commitment to good jobs. It did not commit to union wages on this project."

(See: 32-Story ‘BAM South’ wins NYC Council approval, by Mary Frost, June 17, 2013.)

The way in which BerlinRosen is representing both the BPL and Walenatas developer’s Two Trees Management is reminiscent of how an earlier Brooklyn Community Board 5 committee meeting on the same "BAM South" project held in March was attended by Jamie Van Bramer (no apparent relation to City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer on the library committee) of the Yoswein New York, Inc., a firm hired to lobby for both the BPL and the developer.  Mr. Van Bramer told the assemblage that although his firm also lobbies for the developer he was not there that day to represent the developer on that particular project.  Van Bramer has been at many subsequent meetings where both the BPL’s and the developer’s interests were similarly at stake.

Schwarzman Dreams Of A Hydro-Fracked World

Is Mr. Schwarzman sincere or merely unabashed when it comes to talking points?

Schwarzman environmental finger!: Schwarzman raising his finger to emphasize the point that fracking is `environmental'

After the library discussion Rose gave Schwarzman a chance to expound on his theory of where things were in the world economically, which Schwarzman used as an opportunity to swing the discussion around so he could do some cheerleading for hydrofracking.  (Blackstone invests in fracking.)  The discussion, sanitized to the point that it never mentions the term “hydrofracking,” is scary in the way it invokes “dreaming” as an invitation for Americans to sleep through, and not notice, Schwarzman’s deceptive depiction of fracking as environmentally beneficial.  An indication of the coordination between Rose and Schwarzman is the way that Rose, jumping in, knows that Schwarzman is talking about fracking for natural gas and its supposed “benefits” before there is any concrete clue of the topic in Schwarzman’s own words.

Schwarzman: The US in particular is quite interesting because we have a revolution going on in the energy business in the United States which is presenting…

Rose: What impact is it going to have on the United States in terms of making it, certainly, energy independent and not dependent on energy from the Middle East?

Schwarzman: Well, it does a lot of really neat things.  right? Well, what happens is our price of natural gas is going to be way below world levels. And that's going to enable us, theoretically, to do all kinds of things.  First, it's a clean fuel, which (pointing with a raised finger) is a very important environmental thing.  Second, because it's cheap we are going to be able to attract companies from around the world to locate in the United States, in the petrochemical area and all kinds of allied types of businesses.  Third, we are going to convert over time to gas powering utilities, which is pretty cheap.  We could convert cars to natural gas. The amount of money that we would save would be equivalent to a "peace dividend" plus we'd have clean fuel. We already use natural gas in a lot of cities for buses.

Rose: Right.

Schwarzman: And it's… It will be the natural logical fuel for the United States.

Rose: A better source for propulsion for cars than electric?

Schwarzman: You've got to make electricity. So you could look at it, I guess, you know, either way you'd have to build new electric plants and so forth. I look at this just in terms of dreaming as to what the United States could become as a result of this type of thing.

Rose: So when you dream, the United States could become what?

Schwarzman: Oh, oh, could significantly increase its growth rate, we could be attracting companies and investment from all over the world because we have such cheap energy and we have rule of law here. We have safety and not all the places where you produce energy have rule of law or are safe or don't have threatening neighbors very close by or instability in their populations.  So this can be a kickstart for a new economic age in America if you were to dream.

(To start reading more about what fracking and climate change really mean for the country see: Tuesday, December 6, 2011, Testimony at Department of Environmental Conservation’s 11/30 Hearings on High-Volume Hydraulic Fracturing (“Fracking”): The LONG and the SHORT of It.)

Creatively Cheerful Destruction?

The Schwarzman-Rose tag team are ready to make anything sound good.  But sometimes Schwarzman slips up.  The greedy calculations involved in how to make money in real estate can sometimes involve a certain grim grislyness.  In an exchange with Rose, Schwarzman tells Rose about how he has recently been involved in making money from foreclosed American homes.  Rose quickly identifies what can be described as cheerful about this:

Schwarzman: We started actually buying individual houses from Foreclosure about a year and a quarter ago. We're now the largest owner of houses in the United States.

Rose: Can you say we're the largest investor in houses in the United states, which therefore says that we have confidence in the future of the housing market in the United States?

Schwarzman: Absolutely and in fact it's turned out to be so even faster than we wanted it to.

Schwarzman’s slip-up?: “it's turned out to be so even faster than we wanted it to.”   He was happy to be improving his financial position as others were foundering!  This is one of the trustees pushing through the real estate deals that sell and shrink our libraries?

Schwarzman’s Central Library Plan shrinks 380,000 square feet of library space down to fit into just 80,000 square feet.  It sells off the Mid-Manhattan and SIBL libraries and involves demolishing and getting rid of the research stacks that make the important Central Reverence Library it was meant to be.  All this shrinkage, its full cost not having yet been determined, is likely to cost the public something in the neighborhood of perhaps a half billion dollars, the current estimate being at least $350 million with $150 million being the direct expenditure of taxpayer dollars dictated largely by Mayor Bloomberg.

You can find out more about this from the Committee To Save The New York Public Library.  There is also a petition to be signed from Citizens Defending Libraries (of which I am a co-founder) which is leading a campaign against the sale, shrinkage and deliberate underfunding of all New York City’s libraries in order to create real estate deals for the benefit of developers, not the public.

So did Schwarzman, going on Charlie Rose this week, do a good job in promoting the NYPL’s plans to sell and shrink libraries?  Not for those listening carefully.

NOTE Correction 07/02/'13: This article originally stated that the BPL and the NYPL had both  engaged Berlin Rosen to provide statements about library sell-offs to the public.  Scott Sherman of the Nation only said that the BPL had engaged the firm and the NYPL says that BerlinRosen is not doing work for it.