All Library in New York

Marcy Branch began in 1899 as the Tompkins Park Free Library- a small Grecian-style building in the middle of the Tompkins Park. When it became part of the Brooklyn Public Library system in 1901, a library historian noted “because of the building’s small size, it was considered desirable to have a small librarian and, for many years, petite Miss Edith Read more...

The Mapleton Branch’s first home was a small library on 10th Avenue that opened in 1934. A year later, it moved to a storefront on 18th Avenue, with books and staff transferred from the former Astral Branch. The collection grew rapidly, and in 1955, a new branch opened on the corner of 17th Avenue and 60th Street. The 2005 renovation Read more...

Two thousand people gathered to open the Macon Branch in 1907, the 11th Carnegie library in Brooklyn. The two-story Classical Revival red brick library retains its original fireplaces, oak paneling, alcoves, and wooden benches. To author John Steptoe (1950-1989), who wrote his first book, Stevie, at 16, said he wrote because of the “… great and disastrous need for books Read more...

This one-story Carnegie library opened in 1908. The building features five bays, 10,000 plus square feet and a stone-trimmed doorway with a bracketed pediment. Located one block from busy Metropolitan Avenue, the Leonard Library underwent major renovations from the 1950s through the 1980s.   Read more...

Beginning in an “undertaking establishment,” as an unstaffed deposit station in 1910 the branch continued to move, to a shoe store, a frame shack on Kings Highway and other homes until 1954, when it opened in its own building on its present site. Kings Highway is the first branch library built in Brooklyn by the City of New York. After Read more...

First opened in 1951 in a Nostrand Avenue storefront, Kings Bay Branch expanded into the adjacent store. In 1959, the widening of Nostrand forced the branch to move across the street. A new branch built that same year, was expanded to 11,500 square feet in 1962. A $1.9 million renovation added another 2,000 square feet to the library, among other Read more...

The New Kensington Library opened on Thursday, November 15, 2012! Founded as a deposit station in 1908 by the Mother’s Kindergarten Club of PS 134 and the Kensington Improvement League, Kensington quickly outgrew two locations before becoming a full-fledged branch on McDonald Avenue in 1912. When it again needed more space, in 1960, it moved, to a former catering hall Read more...

In 1973, the Jamaica Bay Branch was built on a site chosen after a public hearing. Its design, by Architects Leibowitz/Badouva and Associates, won the New York Society of Architects bronze plaque for “an accomplished solution to a difficult and highly constrained construction.” In July of 2001, the branch was closed for several renovations, which included the installation of a Read more...

The Homecrest branch is located at Coney Island Avenue. The library services four local schools and several daycare centers and nursery schools. Many of the library’s programs are geared toward the neighborhood’s youngsters. Through its information resources and programming, the Homecrest branch looks forward to serving the changing community: large population of immigrants from Russia, China, Pakistan, India, and Mexico. Read more...