Empty Bookshelves As Library Officials Formulate A New Vision of Libraries: A Vision Where The Real Estate Will Be Sold Off

Aren’t libraries supposed to be places that contain books for us?

The following American Heritage Dictionary definitions of “library” would seem to make that clear:

    a. A place in which reading materials, such as books, periodicals, and newspapers, and often other materials such as musical and video recordings, are kept for use or lending.
    b. A collection of such materials, especially when systematically arranged.
    c. A room in a private home for such a collection.
    d. An institution or foundation maintaining such a collection.

Here are Merriam Webster Dictionary’s principal definitions for “library.”

    a : a place in which literary, musical, artistic, or reference materials (as books, manuscripts, recordings, or films) are kept for use but not for sale
    b : a collection of such materials

Dictionary.com supplies about the same:

    1. a place set apart to contain books, periodicals, and other material for reading, viewing, listening, study, or reference, as a room, set of rooms, or building where books may be read or borrowed.
    2. a public body organizing and maintaining such an establishment.
    3. a collection of manuscripts, publications, and other materials for reading, viewing, listening, study, or reference.
    4. a collection of any materials for study and enjoyment, as films, musical recordings, or maps.
    5. a commercial establishment lending books for a fixed charge; a lending library.

So it would seem that, by definition, a library ought to be a place where books are kept.  Oh, sure, there is more to it than that: There is the idea the place where the books are kept should be a place where people can have ready access to them, the ease of access being a central purpose of having gathered the books together in one place . .  Per that proverbial tree-falling-in-a-forest question: Would a collection of books kept on the moon where nobody could ever visit them still be a library?   It’s doubtful, even if the books constituted the greatest collection of books ever assembled.

Books being being brought together in a “collection,” “systematically arranged,” goes to the notion that an inherently valued goal is to have depth to the collection, the idea that presenting a multiplicity of choices for the reading patron is desirable, probably the more books to select from the better.

What about librarians?  Are they an essential part of a library?  We’ll get to that before we conclude.

Haven’t our visions of libraries always considered that we would find them filled with books, a wonderful wealth of books waiting to be discovered on their shelves?

Here are some stills of libraries from famous movie scenes that feature libraries.

Marian, the librarian with "The Music Man."  Marian's library had books!  Plenty of them.

Two floors of shelves full of books!

In Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" just how many books are in the Beast's library impresses the beautiful Belle

Very impressive, indeed!

In "Breakfast at Tiffany's" Audrey Hepburn's Holly Golightly reads more than one book at a time, not so uncommon when you are doing research

In the magical world of Harry Potter, the gifts and ease that magic can confer doesn't replace the importance of a library with well-stocked shelves full of secrets to be discovered by determined adventurers

In Harry Potter, a ghostly exploration of the libraries for that one book containing an essential fact needed to make sense of the world the young protagonists must conquer.

More that is ghostly: In "Ghostbusters." The ghost in the stacks of 42nd Street's Central Reference Library, like Audrey Hepburn, also seems t like to read more than one book at at time.

To jump ahead, we will be getting to the way that librarians are disappearing from the libraries under the tenure of the current library administration officials who prefer to pay real estate people instead.

The fictional "Ghostbusters"

The imagined stacks of the 42nd Street Central Reference Library in the big budget, special effects "Ghostbusters" film are a good deal less fantastic than the real thing.  By comparison, though full of books, they are quite pedestrian.

The real stacks beneath the Central Reference Library's Rose Reading room are a seven-story book-delivery machine designed to the height of perfection.   

A sectional view of the research stacks as they appeared on the cover of "Scientific American". 

In 1966 Francis Ford Coppola directed "You're a Big Boy Now", his first film for a major studio, much of which was shot at the 42nd Street Central Reference library.  In it Bernard Chanticleer, the young protagonist of the coming of age film, played by Peter Kastner, works as a book-delivering stackboy outfitted with roller skates to speed the books to library patrons with the greatest possible efficiency.  

The roller skates might seem like one of this Coppola film's several surreal touches that, like "Ghostbusters" set this film at a remove or two from reality.  Coppola was enough in love with the idea of roller skating stackboys to put it in the film even though it wasn't in the book the film derives from, but it is a myth that the pages in the stacks scoot around on roller skates.  It is not, however, an unreasonably baseless myth.  According to the New York Times, in March of 1938, NYU put the pages in its basement stockroom on roller skates to reduce the time for delivery of volumes to just "55 seconds."  See: Pages on Roller Skates, ("A novel way to cope with unusual book delivery problems has been started at the New York University Washington Square College Library at the university's downtown center.") March 13, 1938.

Actually, Coppola had previously been mainly a script writer and because he was given permission to direct on condition that the film's budget be kept extremely low, the film is rich in its delivery of sights of authentic New York circa 1966 and an authentic 42nd Street library.  Indeed, the opening sequence over which the film's credits appear, depicts the genuine and superb efficiency of the research library's pneumatic tubes delivering book slip requests and the book elevator sending books up from the stacks.

In the film, the research stacks are full of books.

What about real life?  What about real life today?  More ghostly than the scenes in "Ghostbusters" the NYPL, the library administration officials in charge of the New York Public Library, have removed all the books from the 42nd Street Central Reference Library's fabled stacks.  See pictures below.

Why have all the books been taken out of the 42nd Street library research stacks?  Because having books in a library takes up real estate and the NYPL wants to sell off a hefty portion of its most valuable real estate in central Manhattan.  Not by coincidence the same real estate comprises the sites of the best, most important and publicly valuable libraries in the city.  The NYPL already rushed to sell off one centrally located, crown-jewel library, the five-story, 97,000 square foot Donnell Library across from MoMA on 53rd Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues).  Its sale (netting a paltry $39 million for the NYPL) was suddenly announced in 2007 after a secretive process.- Even as low as it is, that $39 million figure is not net of what the NYPL paid high-priced consultants. . .  the NYPL has paid consultants millions of dollars in connection with these sales.   (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.)

Now, as part of what it calls the Central Library Plan, the NYPL plans to destroy the Central Reference Library's research stacks and sell off the heavily used Mid-Manhattan Library together with SIBL, the Science, Industry and Business Library recently built at substantial public expense in the old Atlman's Department store at 34th Street.  (See: Sunday, July 7, 2013, When (If?) The Mid-Manhattan Library Is Ultimately Sold As Part Of NYPL’s Central Library Plan, How Big A Building Would Replace It? and 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 end result of the Central Library Plan would be that well over 380,000 square feet of library space (Mid-Manhattan, SIBL and the research stacks to be destroyed) would be shrunk down to a mere 80,000 square feet.  (See: Saturday, July 13, 2013, Deceptive Representations By New York Public Library On Its Central Library Plan: We’re NOT Shrinking Library Space, We Are Making MORE Library Space!)

click to enlarge

If you choose to treat as countable in the calculations all of the floor space occupied by the bookshelves and being walked upon by the actors in "You're a Big Boy Now" (despite unusually low ceilings) it actually amounts to 460,000 square feet of library space being reduced to just 80,000 square feet.  This shrinkage is actually an about-face in terms of planning.  Previous to the current cast of real estate estate fixated executives now at the NYPL, library administration officials had planned to nearly double the size of the Mid-Manhattan Library.

All that is left of these then squeezed down and shrunken libraries will be accessed through just one small door near the back of the current 42nd Street library building.  (See: Tuesday, July 2, 2013, Startling Testimony at State Assembly Hearing on NYC Library Sales.)

Why is the NYPL getting rid of the books?  Because books take up space.  There is no way that you can squeeze down all that space to something as tiny as proposed without getting rid of the books.  Keeping books requires real estate and they only want to sell their real estate.

When Citizens Defending Libraries met with the NYPL's Chief Operating Officer David Offensend, Mr. Offensend confirmed that once the Central Library Plan is effectuated, shrinking down the space, there will be no option to expand the library space again to correct for any possible miscalculations and no way to accommodate future growth.  If growth of any kind needs to be accommodated in the future the only way to do that will be to get rid of even more books.  But Mr. Offensend also confirmed something else: That there were as yet no firm plans, no calculations about what quantity of books would be kept and accommodated in the new shrunken down space.  Yet the real estate plans to shrink the space were already firmly in place.

One may infer from this that the objective of selling the real estate came first and took precedence over decisions relating to keeping any books.  I am a co-founder of Citizens Defending Libraries and was part of the meeting where Mr. Offensend informed us of these things.

It's inevitably going to be bad, but there might not be the total train wreck you might expect when all the books and library space is collapsed.  Why?  Because in preparation for this shrinkage it seems that books are disappearing from library shelves ahead of time.  They are disappearing now.  I suppose this prevents the scenerio where some wise-ass shows up and asks the obvious question: `How ya gonna fit all them books in such a tiny space?'   This way, library officials will, instead, be able to respond: `What books?  Where?'

Librarians have been telling Citizens Defending Libraries that books are being removed from the NYPL's bookshelves according to edicts issued by Anne Coriston, NYPL's vice president for public service, one of the NYPL's library senior executives in the library group in charge of "Strategy" and the Central Library Plan consisting of COO David Offensend, Andrew W. Mellon Director Ann Thornton, Anne Coriston, Vice President for Capital Planning and Construction Joanna Pestka, Vice President for Finance and Strategy Jeffrey Roth, and Director of Strategy Micah May.

On the NYPL trustee level, it is reportedly Stephen A. Schwarzman and Marshall Rose who are pushing the NYPL's real estate plans (both are in the real estate business), although apparently Mr. Offensend is now officially working on the Central Library Plan on a "task force" with two other trustees, David Remnick and Katharine J. Rayner.   Mr. Remnick, a journalist, has since 1998, been editor of The New Yorker, a magazine that, under other circumstance, might have been expected to investigate and report vigerously and critically about the NYPL’s Central Library Plan.

I thought I would go out to the libraries and see for myself if books were disappearing from the shelves.  Unfortunately, as I can't time travel back, I have no "before" pictures to go along with these many "after" pictures.

First, let's go to Barnes & Noble, just to remind ourselves what full bookshelves look like.  I paid special attention to the biography sections.

Closeup of books in the Barnes and Noble Biography section, in the center two copies of David Nasaw's "The Chief" about  publisher William Randolph Hearst.

Above, shown amongst a closeup of some of the biographies at Barnes and Noble, are two copies of the 2000 book, “The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst” by David Nasaw.  “The Chief” won the Anthony Lukas Book Prize and the Bancroft Prize for American history. It was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award.  It is one of two books by Mr. Nasaw, the other being a biography of Joseph P. Kennedy, “The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy,” that contain information about my grandfather Thomas Justin White, who was president and general manager of the Hearst organization.

When I visited the Mid-Manhattan Library this 2002 award-winning book was not on its shelves and I was told that the library no longer had a copy in its collection.  I was told that if I wanted to read it I would have to go over to the Central Reference Library, currently a non-circulating library.

Mr. Nasaw, together with Citizens Defending Libraries, is one of a number of plaintiffs participating in a lawsuit against the NYPL seeking to halt the Central Library Plan’s destruction of the research stacks.  In total, nine recognized and award-winning scholars are joined with Citizens Defending Libraries in that lawsuit.  Mr. Nasaw is also the author of a 2006 biography of library philanthropist and steel magnate Andrew Carnegie that was a finalist for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for biography.  The Central Reference Library's research stacks are constructed of Carnegie steel.

Mr. Nasaw wrote his most recent biography about Joseph P. Kennedy after being invited to do so by the Kennedy family, based in the strength of his previous biographies.  Similarly, biographer Edmund Morris, another plaintiff with Citizens Defending Libraries in the lawsuit, wrote his 1999 biography of Ronald Reagan, “Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan,” when the Reagan family approached him based on his earlier Theodore Roosevelt biography work.  Mr. Morris won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for his first book, “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.”

In an affidavit Mr. Morris provided in the lawsuit Mr. Morris described his current inability to get the research books he needs to do his writing at the Central Reference Library: 

7. Those individuals who support the Plan are prone to boast that books relegated to offsite storage are made available within two days of request. My experience is that requests for materials stored "off site" often takes much longer than the vaunted delivery time of 48 hours. And this does not include those situations in which the book requested cannot be found, ostensibly due to its having been transported back and forth.

8. Frustrating though this is for a researcher living in the New York area — particularly when one returns to the Library on the predicted delivery date, and finds the item still not available — it is worse for scholars from out of town or overseas, who have to pay hotel and other bills while waiting and waiting and waiting. . . .

The Orwellian effect of these disappearing books is thus twofold: The materials needed to to write books such as historical biographies cannot be found in the library, and then, once those biographies written, those looking to read them cannot readily find them.  (We won’t, at this moment, get into the even worse Orwellian characteristics of digital books: Amazon Erases Orwell Books From Kindle, by Brad Stone, July 17, 2009.)

In any event Barnes and Noble is still using its real estate to present us with physical books.

By contrast, the NYPL is not currently filling its precious library real estate with books.  The pictures of largely empty shelves below are from SIBL.  The emptiness does seem to substantiate the claim librarians are making that the NYPL wants its shelves no more than half full.

One reason it may be considered extra startling that the shelves at SIBL are so empty is that this library has already gone through a significant contraction, giving up a lot of space to the Episcopal Church’s Church Pension Group, sold at very low price given what the public paid to build SIBL not so long ago.  Coincidentally (or not?) the Church Pension Group moving into the SIBL space is freeing up real estate right next to the Mid-Manhattan library that the NYPL wants to sell off.

Entrance on 34th Street to the old Altman's Building to former SIBL space taken over by the Church Pension Fund

A lot of the valuable real estate of the Mid-Manhattan Library's shelves is also going unused, some of it startlingly so.

Mid-Manhattan has William Randolph Hearst biographies, but not "The Chief"

With the "extinction" of books at Mid-Manhattan, will readers find enough to teach themselves about global warming and mass extinctions of the past?  This library is supposed to provide science research resources at the high school, college and general research level. 

At Mid-Manhattan, it's not just the books that are scarce.  Shelves that could be holding DVD's and CDs (including great audio lectures) also look barren. I asked a librarian about finding DVDs of "The Avengers," the British television series from the 1960's with Patrick Mcnee's John Steed and Diana Rigg's Ema Peel.  These DVD's are expensive to go out and buy.  The program aired for most of the decade, but the library did not have enough copies to have any episode with Ema Peel available on the shelf that day.  All that was available was a DVD from an early series year with Honor Blackman playing Cathy Gale, predecessor of Ms. Peel.   That's not a scientific test by any means, but what are all those empty shelves about?

The strategies of selling off libraries and library space that were launched by Offensend and his cohorts with the Donnell Library sale are now being exported to Brooklyn with proposed sales of Brooklyn libraries like the Brooklyn Heights and Pacific Branch libraries.

The sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library, closely replicating the sale and shrinkage involved in the Donnell sell-off, involves a much smaller future Brooklyn Heights library.  Ostensibly, according to the library administration officials looking to justify its sale, the Brooklyn Heights Library will be smaller because half of its services, operations and programming, what is referred to as its Business and Career functions, will be moved out of the central downtown  Brooklyn business district.  To the extent that those operations actually carry forward and exist in the future (Brooklyn Public Library officials say they will still exist) they will be moved into the Grand Army Plaza main branch library beside Prospect Park.  In a consolidating shrinkage much like the NYPL's Central Library Plan, the physical space of the Grand Army Plaza branch is not being expanded to accommodate the arrival of these Brooklyn Heights Library's programs, functions, resources and books.

When Josh Nachowitz, spokesperson for the BPL (formerly, before the advent of library sales, at EDC, the Mayor's real estate development agency) was confronted about the fact that there wouldn't be room for the half of the Brooklyn Heights Library to be put into the Grand Army Plaza he countered with the assertion that there would be plenty of room.

At a community board committee meeting I challenged Mr. Nachowitz, saying that the only way they would have room would be because the administration was getting rid of books.  Mr. Nachowitz said that what the BPL is doing, “in no way means we are eliminating books . .  getting rid of books”  scoffing “We are a library; the whole point of a library is that we provide books for free.”  But, echoing the way that the Central Library Plan banishes books from 42nd Street Reference Library’s research stacks to southern New Jersey in Princeton, he explained how space can somehow become available without, in his opinion, actually “eliminating books.”  Says Nachowitz: “We’re taking a central book processing function” (also described by Mr. Nochowitz and his cohorts as a “back office opertaion”) from the Grand Army Plaza Library and “a lot of staff” and “moving that to a central processing facility that we are sharing with the New York Public Library.”  At that removed and shared location the staff will be “taking books in, books come in, they stamp them, they put them into their computer system and they send them out again.”

Mr. Nachowitz says this facilitates moving “books around the system” and that’s its “cheaper.”
No matter: The “cheaper” system means that the books won’t be at the libraries, and, despite the BPL’s claims of greater efficiency, things don’t always go well with the delivery systems.  Citizens Defending Libraries is getting complaints by users of the system like the following: After making a first visit to the library and then having to order a book not on the premises, patrons notified to make the second trek to pick up their book discover that the ordered book hasn’t actually arrived.  (At least one woman blamed the library staff and proclaimed the Brooklyn Heights Library an unsatisfactory library as a result.)

Are the books already beginning to disappear from the BPL's Grand Army Plaza library in preparation to absorb the Brooklyn Heights and/or other libraries in the future?  Here are some pictures.

Brooklyn's Grand Army Plaza Library does have a copy of "The Chief"

There are library patrons who are telling Citizens Defending Libraries that when they go to Grand Army Plaza to get books they need in connection with their business, librarians tell them that the books aren't there anymore and have been sent to the Brooklyn Heights Library.  That seems strangely on the verge of a shell game or runaround if the Brooklyn Heights Library's books are about to be sent to Grand Army Plaza.

What's happening at the Brooklyn Heights Library?  Are they paring down that library's book collections in preparation for a consolidating shrinkage?  The pictures tell the story.  As you look at them, it is important to remember that although the the BPL has expressed an intent to sell and shrink the Brooklyn Heights Library, it has, through Mr. Nachowitz, represented to the public that there won't be subtractions from its services before required public hearings about whether the real estate should be sold.

Business and Career Library shelves

Business and Career Library shelves

Business and Career Library shelves

Know your rights, know the law!  In this library you may think you've lost them all

Arrow to "Biographies"?

Children's Library

Children's Library

Children's Library

Trips to nowhere?

General library Biography section

Books on religion need to be culled down to this?

Plays

In the Biography section there is still one Copy of "Bloomberg by Bloomberg"

I was pleased to see that the library still had one copy of "Bloomberg by Bloomberg," the 1997 biography Bloomberg issued about himself  as he got ready to go into politics (and become substantially richer as mayor afterwards). When I wanted to review its content in the fall of 2009 (I was writing about how Bloomberg's "charity" isn't really charity), I went to the library for a copy because I neither wanted to buy the book nor give Bloomberg a royalty for it.  I see that the library has since added two copies of the adulatory Joyce Purnick biography of Bloomberg.

The Brooklyn Public Library has one copy of David Nasaw's "The Chief," but no other Hearst biographies of which there are many.

I checked to see whether the Brooklyn Heights Library, unlike the Mid-Manhattan, had a copy of  "The Chief."  It did, but unlike the Mid-Manhattan, it had none of the other many William Randolph Hearst biographies.  The library had no copies of the '60s television series "The Avengers," having never bought any, but I did have a good conversation with a librarian about what an outstanding role model the Mrs. Peel character is for girls.  It was noted that "The Avengers" can be watched on Netflix.  I haven't yet invested in a subscription.

I had one scare over which I would have been aghast.  I was told that library no longer had a copy of "The Federalist Papers."  I had quickly obtained a copy of the "The Federalist Papers" there in the fall of 2009.  I was told that the book, part of the libraries "floating collection," was not on site.  It turned out the information was wrong and a dedicated librarian, correcting himself, ran out to find me on the street and deliver it to me after realizing that "The Federalist Papers"could be found on premises.

Mistake corrected: The Heights Library did have a copy of "The Federalist Papers"

I'm told by librarians that a certain amount of annual culling of a library's collection is appropriate.  Certain books, like some kinds of science books, become out of of date over time, so unless you are researching how science has progressed from one point of view to another over the years, some older books should come off the shelves.   The librarians point out to me that if the budget is not sufficient to restock the shelves with newer replacement science books the collection could thereby dwindle.  As there is underfunding, that could provide explanation for some recent shrinkage.

Alternatively, some books don't lose their value over time and I am told that Anne Coriston's directives have included instructions to remove "shabby" (as well as duplicate) books from the shelves, something that doesn't make sense to librarians when you might be talking about rare or limited editions.

It is also true that that in certain instances, certain data publishers have gone digital. Phone books are used less often; instead we go to the internet and get the phone number we seek mixed with some advertising.

The absence of books in the library can be seen from the street at night when the library is closed.  If and when the library is actually sold off to a developer for development will we look in to see worse?

Are physical books unimportant to the library of the future?  See: Publishers Weekly-  Pew Survey Shows Power of Print, Jun 25, 2013.  The demand for physical books at the library is not going down or being replaced by digital books: Although the NYPL has 84,000 e-book titles available only 7.3% of the books being checked out are e-books.

The bigger subject of why digital books are not adequate substitutions for physical books is too big and complicated to get into here at this time, but suppose we set that subject aside long enough to ask whether we can have the kind of libraries we value without librarians, because we are getting rid of librarians also. Librarians, like library books, require space.  (Unless they are the ethereal, half-vanished librarian haunting the library in "Ghostbusters.")  Sometimes the space librarians use and require is back office space, the kind of space that isn’t necessarily accessible to the general public and which library administration officials cheerily tell us they can get rid of without consequence.

Maybe an even simpler question should be asked: Forget entirely about the space we are taking away from them for a minute. . . If we still truly value our libraries, would we be cutting their funding drastically at a time of greatly increasing use when the city is growing and wealthier than it has been in years?  If that answer is the self-evident negative I believe it must be, can’t we then intuit that all these other subtractions of library resources being thrust upon us by the same people who are underfunding our libraries are just as equally ill advised?

The bump up in blue line representing funding above corresponds to Bloomberg's pursuit of his third term.  The drastic decline while use is rising corresponds to his administration's pursuit of library sell-offs

One thing is certain: If we let library and city administration officials get rid of the libraries' book collections, then, by definition, what we are left with in the end won't actually be libraries at all.

Candidate News: Tomorrow’s Primary Election - Silly Season? Some Consider It So, But. . .

Here’s some news, a bit of a round-up of stories concerning who you might vote for in tomorrow’s primary election.

When I was in government, for all the months leading up to an election we kept our heads down, referring to the election season as the “silly season” trying to ignore, particularly the hyperbole and shrill rhetoric,  what was going on.  It was axiomatic that much of what was being said wasn’t sincerely meant and that in many respects whatever politicians were elected to office they would wind up doing very similar things.  You know, `politics is the art of promising what is popular to the public and governance is what actually gets done in terms of running things after the election.’

Nevertheless, as a member of the electorate there is no better or more important time than now in terms of having candidates clarify their positions and locking them firmly into promises tat will cause embarrassing damage to their careers if they don’t honor.

With that as background. . .

Candidate Recommendations From Citizens Defending Libraries

Citizens Defending Libraries (of which I am a co-founder), formed in February of this year in response (with a petition) to the breaking headlines about the selling off, shrinking and underfunding of New York City libraries to create real estate deals that benefit real estate developers, not the public, has issued recommendations on candidates running for office in new York City.
 
Citizens Defending Libraries first issued its recommendation NOT to vote for Christine Quinn.  (See: Citizens Defending Libraries First Election Recommendation: NO to Christine Quinn, Who Favors Selling & Shrinking Libraries.)

Citizens Defending Libraries then issued its recommendations, pro and con, respecting other candidates in the election.  (See: Citizens Defending Libraries Recommendations On Other Candidates: Vote For Liu or de Blasio (Depending), Tish James For Public Advocate, NO to Squadron, and . . . More .)

Citizens Defending Libraries recommends voting for John Liu or Bill de Blasio (depending- detailed explanation at its site) for the Democratic nomination for Mayor and recommends voting for Tish James for Public Advocate.  Citizens Defending Libraries strongly recommends against voting for Daniel Squadron for that position.  In addition, Citizens Defending Libraries has other recommendations on other candidates.  That includes City Council and Borough President races in addition to a recommendation to vote for George McDonald for the Republican nomination for Mayor.

Candidates that Citizens Defending Libraries recommends include the following candidates for City Council seats: Steve Levin, Yetta Kurland, Micah Kellner and Ede Fox.

As for who I will be voting for, for Mayor (and who I think most Noticing New York readers will be voting for). . . .  I will get to that in a minute.

Citizens Defending Libraries recommendations are based on the Mayoral forum on libraries it held for Mayoral candidates on August 30th (link provided below), the Public Advocates and Comptroller Candidates forum on libraries held September 4, (link provided below), responses to its candidates questionnaire and its other interactions with, and information about, the candidates.  The full whys, wherefores and analysis are provided at Citizens Defending Libraries web pages links provided above.

    •    Mayoral Forum on Libraries Held August 30, 2013
   
    •    Public Advocates and Comptroller Candidates Forum on Libraries Held September 4, 2013 
   
If you check in with what was said at these forums you'll notice that the politics of the real estate industry and its influence in this city was talked about a lot.

Other Candidate News: WNYC Reports on de Blasio’s Atlantic Yards History

A few days ago WNYC ran one of its best stories to date on the Atlantic Yards mega-project:  De Blasio’s Atlantic Yards Support Helped Old Ally ACORN played pivotal role in 2001 City Council race, Thursday, September 05, 2013, by Matthew Schuerman.

Click to listen to the audio below.



Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report is quoted (using a sound bite) in the WNYC story.  Here is his largely complimentary Atlantic Yards Report take on WNYC’s reporting: Thursday, September 05, 2013, WNYC on de Blasio: "his handling of Atlantic Yards raises questions about whether he has been able to push developers to keep their promises".
       
Mr. Oder says:

I'd encourage people to listen to the audio, rather than rely on the text version, since there are some key differences and shadings.

Notably, in the audio version, the last word goes to the skeptical Letitia James, rather than the self-serving Bill de Blasio. And she deserves it.

By the way, not by coincidence, Tish James, running and recommended for the Public Advocate office by Citizens Defending Libraries, has been in the forefront of the opposition to the selling off, shrinking and underfunding of libraries for real estate deals.  See the follwoing Tish James OpEd that appeared in both the Brooklyn Eagle and the Huffington Post: OPINION: Shrinking the library system is a loss for New Yorkers, August 29, 2013.

The best financed opponent of Tish James, Daniel Squadron, recommended for office by Noticing New York for his senatorial office in 2008 because of expressed opposition to Atlantic Yards (though never ultimately acted on), has refused to oppose New York City’s library sales, including not representing his constituents to oppose the proposed sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library.  Squadron is also regarded as having sold out the supporters who got him into office when he relinquished, without a fight, substantial leverage he had to oppose a huge amount of development that might have been parts of Brooklyn Bridge Park.

For more on Squadron and libraries Citizens Defending Libraries has a tasty YouTube Video up with moderator Roy Paul asking some hard questions: Squadron Surrogate Mark Green Grilled On Offensend Donation.

Back to WNYC’s story about de Blasio on Atlantic Yards. .

Here is my Noticing New York comment posted at WNYC’s site:

This story is one of the best that WNYC has done on Atlantic Yards giving to it the kind of time the subject deserves.

Nevertheless, here is what is absent from the narrative reported. The story is all about failure to enforce the "public benefit" aspects of Atlantic Yards (de Blasio's failures in particular), not about the fact that those public benefit terms were, in the first instance, written by the developer for the developer's benefit, not the public.

Atlantic Yards as originally conceived was not right and de Blasio should have opposed it (He once feinted at doing so) from the beginning demanding a different project divided up and competitively bid amongst multiple developers, one that did not involve tearing down much of the neighborhood with eminent domain. The project should only be building over the rail yards, not on the rubble of what Ratner was allowed to tear down.

Instead, one of the main features of Atlantic Yards that is bad is also now central to the problems of negotiating with the developer and enforcing public benefit: That Forest City Ratner has been granted a government-supported mega-monopoly. You can't negotiate with a monopoly. You can't negotiate with a mega-monopoly. Mr. de Blasio and others should insist that the Atlantic Yards mega-monopoly be taken away from Forest City Ratner, Mr. de Blasio's campaign donor.

Here is more Noticing New York analysis on that subject: Tuesday, April 30, 2013, Relevance of Mayoral Debate Discussion About Forest City Ratner Atlantic Yards Misconduct To The Sale and Underfunding of NYC Libraries.

Relevant Background Report: The Vicious Cycle Of Subsidies And Elections

In early August Atlantic Yards Report ran a story extremely relevant to elections, echoing a concern repeatedly raised here in Noticing New York: How government subsidies pick and flow money to economic winners, including the very politically connected Forest City Ratner, and then companies like the Ratner firm, awash in such benefit, flow that money back to get their favorite politicians elected.  (That’s why de Blasio taking money and campaign support from Ratner is such a concern.)  The story was about a new Cause of Action report specifically about Forest City Ratner.  According to the New York Post:

Forest City Enterprises, the real-estate behemoth whose subsidiary built the Barclays Center, has taken pay-to-play to new levels, an explosive new report charges.  The company has gotten indirect government subsidies totaling $2.6 billion over the last decade — or 23 percent of its $11.4 billion in revenues over the period, according to the report.

See: Wednesday, August 07, 2013, A national spotlight: libertarian watchdog group targets Forest City Enterprises for "political profiteering"; while report goes over the top, Forest City's defense is too pat.

More from the Post:

“For far too long, Forest City Enterprises has operated on the model of political profiteering, essentially rigging the marketplace by paying off government officials with lavish campaign contributions and gambling with taxpayer funds for its private profit,” Cause of Action's Epstein told the Post.

Responds Forest City Ratner (Oder says “a wee bit” defensive and self-righteously):

Forest City spokesman Jeff Linton said, “It should come as no surprise that we support candidates whose policies promote economic development and job creation. However, to suggest or imply a direct connection between this support and our opportunities as a company is baseless and defamatory.”

He said without government development incentives, most of the company’s development projects “would not be economically viable.”

To me that sounds nearly like, `yes, you’re right.’

Apparently the report doesn’t get all its subsidy calculations correct (I think it may underestimate them), a hard thing to do, which is one reason firms like the Ratner firm walk away pocketing so much more taxpayer money than the electorate is likely to actually know.

I’ll leave the quibbles about the report and its calculations to Mr. Oder, who says: 

It's also simplistic to suggest that Forest City's considerable spending on campaign contributions and lobbying directly delivers subsidies and government assistance.

Instead, I will pose the following as a standing question which I think that any reporter interviewing Forest City Ratner and its executives should always be primed and ready to ask:

What was the last project, if any, that Forest City Ratner did that did not receive significant public subsidy from some level of government and was subject to a true competitive bid?   

The question has never been asked.  The answer is that there aren’t any.

The New York Times Weighs In On What Developers Think Of The Silly Season

With all that money flowing in, developers likely believe that, in the end, they have the upper hand, according to a New York Times article that describes what developers think of the silly season:

In the Democratic primary for New York City mayor, a new set of political dirty words has surpassed the usual favorites, like “lobbyist” and “flip-flop,” that are traditionally used to spritz opponents and adversaries with a film of slime.

These new dirty words are “real estate,” “developers” and “condos” — printable, and yet filthy with disdain. But, conveniently, they have not stopped any of the major campaigns from accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the real estate industry. 

    * * * *

Some members of the real estate industry may grumble to find themselves on the raw end of a stump speech, said Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, a business group, but most just shrug it off.

 “It’s political pandering to a public sentiment that the middle class and low-income people have been left out of the prosperity of the past decade,” Ms. Wylde said. “I think, for the most part, they would govern with very different interests than their political rhetoric suggests.”

And so the money rolls in.

(See: The Appraisal: In Mayoral Race, Attacking Real Estate Industry but Taking Its Cash, by Elisabeth A. Harris and Jo Craven McGinty, September 2, 2013.)

That “shrug” above comes from the same Kathryn S. Wylde with whom I used to do a considerable amount of work and who favors the use of eminent domain to take property away from individuals and hand it over to politically-connected developers.  (I don’t yet know her position on handing over public libraries, but I fear to guess.)

Kathy Wylde

 And The Winner Is. . . . ?

Who will I personally vote for, for Mayor?: I will vote for John Liu!

That's because in this season of rhetoric I think it is most important to go back and look at the record of what a candidate has actually done and John Liu has a record of standing up to the real estate industry.  He also one of the candidates not funded by that industry.  I suspect that most regular Noticing New York readers, remembering the record of the candidates, will be voting for Liu.

Voting for Liu may get us into a run-off in which Liu will participate.  Whether or not it does, I think that voting for Liu sends the best message, one that desperately needs to be sent.

Deceptive Representations By New York Public Library On Its Central Library Plan: We’re NOT Shrinking Library Space, We Are Making MORE Library Space!

It does seem as if more and more often the perfunctory and somehow now acceptable public relations ploy for public officials with an objectionable or weak narrative they want to peddle to the public is to simply declare that they are doing the opposite of what they are actually doing and see if anyone notices.

Does Bloomberg’s Mid-town rezoning proposal, almost doubling the density of Manhattan around Grand Central Terminal, raise the specter of absolutely unbearable congestion?: Sell the idea as a plan intended to relieve the congestion the public already perceives as oppressive!

So it is when the New York Public Library schemes to sell off library real estate.  (We are speaking of the NYPL’s Central Library Plan, “CLP”.)  If you sell off your library real estate you are going to have less library space to serve the public.  That’s something the public isn’t going to like to hear.  Right?

Solution?: Simply tell the public that shrinking library real estate way down actually amounts to increasing it!

How completely does the NYPL indulge in this reverse logic game?

Let’s first review how much library real estate the CLP discards as it shrinks library space and then consider how the NYPL depicts it all as an increase. 

The Shrinkage of 380,000 sq ft is pared down to only 80,000 sq ft

The consolidating shrinkage of the Central Library Plan involves taking about 380,000 square feet of library space and shrinking it down to 80,000 square feet.  Two libraries, together constituting about 300,000 square feet of space, the Mid-Manhattan (about 139,000 sq ft), and SIBL, the Science Industry and Business Library (160,000 sq ft), will be sold off.  In addition, in a further loss of space, the research stacks (80,000 sq ft*) underneath the Rose Reading Room of the 42nd Street Central Reference Library, serving that room, integrated into the room's function, and providing its structural support will be demolished, decommissioning the Central Reference Library as the world-class institution it was designed to be.  All of what was in the 300,000 sq ft space of the two sold-off libraries will then be squeezed into the space where the irreplaceable research stacks will have been destroyed at enormous cost to the public.  Astoundingly, it will be accessed through one small door and that perhaps says something dispiriting about how library officials really do view this as a significantly reduced space.

As recently as 2003, when growth plans were abruptly supplanted by shrinkage plans, it was proposed that Mid-Manhattan be almost doubled by adding 117,000 additional sq ft to it.  Indeed, there is good reason to argue that Mid-Manhattan should have been increased by an even greater amount than planned in 2003 because, in 2007, when it was announced that the former Donnell Library was being closed for shrinkage the public was assured that one of the reasons it needn’t regret the space disappearing from Donnell was that many of that library’s functions and collections were being transferred to Mid-Manhattan!

(* I am stating the calculations here in a way that actually underestimates the reduction of space by treating the square footage of the research stack area as being the same before and after the changes the CLP would effect, deferring to the NYPL's calculation that afterwards there will be 80,000 square feet of space.  Arguably, the seven floors of stack space constitute more than double that, 162,000 square feet of space.  You will see, reading on, that the NYPL inaccurately asserts the stacks constitute even more space than that.  But the seven floors of the stacks are not “stories” or  “floors” in a typical and conventional sense: Each is about 7’ tall, shorter than a normal ceiling height, and the floors are thin marble catwalks supported in the steel matrix of the structure with open slots of about 4 inches between the catwalks and the shelves that allow air to circulate freely between floors.)    

Statements in which library officials (and Mayor Bloomberg) assert that they are increasing library space rather than shrinking it.

The day after Nicole Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute published an opinion column in the New York Post lambasting the Central Library Plan as a “vanity real estate” boondoggle in which she said the  Mid-Manhattan and the Science, Industry and Building Library would be  “crammed” into the 42nd Street building (see: Real-estate fiction-NY Public Library’s risky scheme, July 7, 2013), the NYPL’s Chief Operating Officer, David Offensend, responded in a letter to the Post denying that fact and describing that space reduction as, instead, being an increase with these words: “There will be more public space available than currently exists in all three buildings” (Make book on this, July 8, 2013.)

Space is space and inherently valuable, so the only way in which to describe a space reduction as an increase in space is to side-step an apples-to-apples comparison of space by substituting other contrived measures of evaluation; for example being oblivious to that fact libraries are far more than what Mr. Offensend might selectively characterize as space that is “publicly open” and oblivious to how  the NYPL is getting ride of books and librarians, themselves significant assets that are part of properly serving the public.

This contrarian idea of describing significantly “smaller” as greatly “bigger” so as to confuse the public isn’t new.  It may be a reason why the public and the press accepting statements from the NYPL at face value haven’t raised the extraordinary outcry you would expect in reaction to plans to cast off these irreplaceable assets and crown jewels of the library system.

Go inside the 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue Central Reference Library building and you will find pretty but difficult-to-interpret schematics hung up as PR canvasses advising you that all the complexity represented there reassuringly boils down simply to this (see image below): The NYPL is “Doubling Public Space.”

That’s the “big type”!  If you diligently read the small print you will find that you are even more reassuringly told (emphasis supplied) that: “The plan will more that double public space at  42nd Street by converting an area the size of seven football fields— the closed book stacks — into a lending library and other educational spaces.” . ..  Note how easily the ambiguity of the word  “closed” allows the reader to mistakenly infer that the research stacks are no longer used and no longer have function.

“Seven football fields”?  That's clearly a reference to the square footage of the seven floors of research stacks that will be torn out given the telltale “seven” reference, but it is an inaccurate and a misleading statement in several respects, the most significant being that the square footage of the space planned to replace the stacks (80,000 square feet) will be only 39% more than the size of one football field, an American football field being 57,600 square feet.  But the idea that there are “seven football fields” of stack space to be converted is balderdash in that each floor of the stacks is only about 23,000 square feet, far less than half an American Football field, with the entire seven floors of that space adding up to only only about 162,000 square feet.  That's fewer than three American football fields.  Soccer, rugby and virtually every other kind of football fields are bigger than an American football field which would throw the NYPL's calculations even more wildly off.  Does anyone want to bet that when the NYPL does its space calculations it switches over to measurements of cubic square feet whenever that boosts its exaggerations?

A sectional view of the research stacks as they appeared on the cover of "Scientific American".  “Seven football fields” of claimable space per the NYPL?  Hardly.

Around the bend you will discover other NYPL visuals that deceptively misrepresent the volumes of space being reshuffled and severely contracted as the NYPL discards is assets selling off real estate, somehow, counter-intuitively, at a probable net financial loss that is being downplayed.

Above you see the `explanatory’ canvasses at the 42nd Street Central Reference Library and below you see a version of the same NYPL-supplied visual picked up in a Library Journal article about the two lawsuits recently filed to block the demolition of research stacks that would ruin the function of the Central Reference Library.  (See: Second Suit Filed to Halt NYPL Central Renovation, by Meredith Schwartz, July 11, 2013.)  Observe that Library Journal simply reproduces the NYPL image without noting any of its oddities.

The NYPL promulgated visual above is startling in the way that it deceptively misrepresents what the NYPL is proposing to do in terms of shrinking down library space (which is one of the reasons the NYPL is getting rid of books).  The Science, Industry and Business Library (SIBL) is diagrammed as if it is the smallest of the spaces they are dealing with.  It is actually the largest of the library spaces at 160,000 sq ft.  Mid-Manhattan at about 140,000 sq ft is the second largest although it is made to look about the same size as the representation of the 80,000 sq ft of space where the research stacks are now that would be ripped out.  Even though, bottom line, 380,000 square feet of library space is being shrunk down to just that 80,000 sq ft (to be accessed through only one small door way in the back of the building), the diagram almost makes it look like it could all fit without throwing away the books they are throwing out.

Also, just looking at the diagram and not reading what it says you might think that Central Reference Library books are not being moved off-site to Princeton, New Jersey and/or elsewhere.  And you might think that the stack space under Bryant Park is not already being used, that it did not previously exist, nor that it had the intended purpose of also covering future expansion which it will, under this plan, no longer be able to do.  It would be incorrect to suppose any of the above.

This silliness is replicated in an even more forcefully misleading way, in a video animation inserted in a five-minute NYPL-produced film that plays on a loop in the 42nd Street building’s lobby and is available on its web site: “A First Look at NYPL's Central Library Plan.”  I have made just the animation segment available in the video below.

NYPL animation misrepresenting space shuffling as part of CLP Plan



If the spacial relations were more correctly depicted it would look like this.

click to enlarge

Or wouldn’t it be better to better to depict the entire before and after this way?

click to enlarge

The NYPL was not alone in making the misrepresentation to the public that what was going on was a seeming increase to the supply of publicly owned library space with the building of libraries bigger than had ever been previously seen.  Mayor Bloomberg has done the same thing.  They must be conferring on strategy.

Bloomberg has been starving New York City libraries of funds so that the fact that the libraries are underfunded and in disrepair can be cited as an excuse to sell them off.  See the chart of increased usage versus drastically reduced city funding below.  If the public comprehended that this tactic was translating into sale of libraries and shrinkage of the system they would be outraged, but instead Bloomberg spoke to them in his February State of the City Address informing the public that he was doing something sounding like it was certainly the opposite:

In midtown, we’re helping the New York Public Library build the largest circulating and research library in the world.

(WNYC text: Bloomberg's Final State of the City Address, Thursday, February 14, 2013)

Bloomberg was not telling the public that the new large midtown library was intended to consist of the shrunken remnants of Manhattan’s formerly great libraries: Mid-Manhattan, SIBL, the Donnell Library (shrunk from 97,000 square feet to 28,000 square feet) and the world-renowned Central Reference Library.  Nor was Bloomberg saying that it was already announced that the program of sale and shrinkage of libraries was being exported to Brooklyn with the intended sale of the Brooklyn Heights and Pacific Branch libraries, and others yet unspecified in line afterward, and with a consolidating cramming of space that will affect Brooklyn’s main library at Grand Army Plaza.

Arguments For Smaller Libraries?

Maybe there are possible arguments for smaller libraries but usage of New York City libraries is way up, 40% programmatically and 59% in terms of circulation.  Demand for physical books is up and a new Pew Study tells us that our modern age youth are far from ready to give up their physical books: American Youth Read Books in Print (For Now), by Aron Chilewich, June 26, 2013.

If smaller libraries really are truly better wouldn’t library officials be telling us that?  To an extent they might actually be endeavoring to do that, quibbling a bit bout the space calculations, speaking in terms of equivalent space, usable space, “found” space and the “flexibility” of replacement space built without fixed walls.  See: 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 and Thursday, April 25, 2013, Building a “Murphy Library”.

The bleacher/stairs can be used to show people David Niven movies in the daylight- Go to NNY's earlier article to see, with picture, what Ronald Reagan film probably ought to be shown.

Sometimes it almost appears that library officials are, in fact, ready and intending to implement these ideas about these new smaller, flexible library spaces.  When I wrote my own article reviewing the plans for the depressingly reduced `replacement’ for the Donnell Library that is largely sadly bookless,  I did not slow down enough to observe things about this (above) promotional visual of the new staircase-shaped “piazza” that this anonymous reader of Librarian News did:

If you look at the picture carefully you see some odd things. Movie playing on the wall. Musicians playing in the corner and a person speaking in front of them.     

That’s not to mention that the movie is being played while daylight comes in from the street above.  (See: State of the Art Library to Open on NY's Upper West Side in 2015...But Existing Libraries Find Funding Slashed, birdie.)

Another commenting reader cites several reasons he/she doesn’t think David Niven would approve of the perhaps hazardous design.

But, in point of fact, we know that the truth of the matter is that smaller libraries aren’t better.  We know this because if library administration and city officials really thought this was true they wouldn’t be spending so much time making the opposite case, that big is better, going out of their way to tell us how they are building bigger libraries when they actually aren’t.

They really do have a problem truthfully making their case: Right now advertising history is being made by AT&T with its new “It’s Not Complicated” campaign.  That’s one where kids are interviewed by a deadpan adult about how “fast is better” than “slow” and “bigger is better” than “small.”  (See: How AT&T Got Kids to Make Some of the Year's Best Ads- BBDO spins comic gold from their crazy brains, by Tim Nudd,  April 15, 2013.)

In that spirit I conclude this post with some AT&T “It's Not Complicated” `bigger is better’ commercials, because you know what?  It’s true: It isn’t complicated.

(Note: More about the opposition to the Central Library Plan and the selling off and shrinkage of New York City libraries, including a petition that can be signed, two recent lawsuits brought against the CLP and statements against the sales and shrinkage by the New York City Comptroller and the New York City Public Advocate- both candidates for mayor- and other elected officials and candidates is available from Citizens Defending Libraries, a group of which I am a co-founder.)      

AT&T TV Commercial - It's Not Complicated "Tree House"



It's Not Complicated High Fives Commercial AT&T



AT&T TV Commercial - It's Not Complicated "Infinity"