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Designed in the style of an Italian palazzo by the esteemed architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White, the Hamilton Grange Branch was opened in 1907 with funds donated by Andrew Carnegie. The roots of its name date back to 1802 when Alexander Hamilton moved his family into a country house he called The Grange in the then-rural outskirts of Read more...
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The branch and its neighborhood park are both named for Hamilton Fish (1808–93), the distinguished American statesman who was governor of New York and secretary of state under Ulysses S. Grant. The original Hamilton Fish Park Branch was built in 1909, with funds from Andrew Carnegie. When Houston Street was widened for an approach to the FDR Drive, the original Read more...
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The Grand Central Branch, a 12,000 square foot, two-story, light-filled space, is conveniently situated for commuters and area workers, as well as families living to the east. The branch offers 45 computers, 32 of which are laptops; outlets and data ports are located at the bar-height seating looking out on 46th street. Grand Central has collections of DVDs, CDs, large-print, paperbacks, and Read more...
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George Bruce was an enterprising Scotsman who sailed to the United States before he was 15. Eventually settling in New York, he became a well-known typefounder and inventor of printing machinery. In 1877, Bruce’s daughter, Catherine, contributed $50,000 for a library building and books in memory of her father. Completed in 1888, the original George Bruce Library was located on Read more...
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We have collections of materials in Spanish, Russian, and other languages available for borrowing, during fall, winter, and spring, and English Conversation classes in fall and spring. When the Fort Washington Branch celebrated its 75th anniversary in 1989, several well-known personalities, including Henry Kissinger and journalist/author Edwin Newman, fondly recalled how important the branch was to them as teenagers. Among the Read more...
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The Epiphany Branch of The New York Public Library, once part of the Cathedral Library Association founded by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, has served the Gramercy Park-Stuyvesant Town area since 1887. The current Epiphany Branch building, an elegant Carnegie Library, opened on September 29, 1907. It was a major neighborhood cultural and educational source until 1982, when Read more...
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We are home to the James Weldon Johnson Reference Collection for children, located in the Children’s Room on the second floor; books on the African-American experience; a reference collection, including college catalogs and financial aid information; and the African-American/Black Culture reference collection. The Countee Cullen Branch gives Harlem residents of all ages access to library services delivered in a friendly Read more...
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The Columbus Branch of The New York Public Library has been a center for education in the multiethnic, working-class neighborhood of Clinton since the branch opened in 1909. It is one of 65 libraries built in the early twentieth century with funds contributed by Andrew Carnegie. The nucleus of the collection came from the reading room of the Columbus Catholic Read more...
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Chatham Square Library has been an integral part of the Chinatown neighborhood since its earliest days, with a circulating Chinese language collection available since 1911. Chatham Square opened in 1903, replacing a branch of the New York Free Circulating Library that had served the neighborhood for four years. The library was designed by New York architectural firm McKim, Mead and White, and was the second branch Read more...
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Before the Revolutionary War, the Dutch who settled in the beautiful countryside now known as the Upper West Side called the area Bloemendaal, meaning “valley of flowers.” Anglicized as Bloomingdale, this rural community was connected to the lower part of Manhattan by the Bloomingdale Road; today its route is echoed by Broadway. In 1898, the community opened its first library, the Bloomingdale Read more...