New York Public Library, New York City, 1933

About this postcard

The main branch of the New York Public Library stands across Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, its long marble facade, columned portico, and green copper roof rising behind a busy street. Pedestrians, automobiles, and a green double-decker bus fill the foreground, with midtown commercial towers, including a dark one with a gilded upper storey, crowding the skyline behind. The printed caption calls the building the Public Library and notes that it covers two city blocks, is built entirely of marble, cost nine million dollars, opened for public use in 1911, and held more than two million volumes, said to be the most complete library in the country. The Beaux-Arts building by Carrère and Hastings, guarded by the marble lions later nicknamed Patience and Fortitude, was already a familiar civic landmark.