I’m the guy eating chicken in the viral photo of the New York Public Library. I’m a library nerd. But all nerds need a library
Three weeks ago, my life got turned upside-down when I allowed myself to be photographed eating chicken outside the New York Public Library in exchange for some harsh words about that once timeless institution’s real-estate plans. So, too, was the public fate of the most famous library in the world, which is having trouble keeping itself right-side-up.
The man in the now-famous picture is a technologist with a background in computational linguistics and the founder of several ventures. As a boy, he – or rather, I – discovered, fell for and began to frequent the main library, known to New Yorkers as the 42nd Street Library, cradle to so many of the books that line our shelves and scene of such classics as Ghostbusters and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Now, if a secretive administration has its way, this library could end up a ghost of its former self. The library’s seven floors of book stacks – the structural support of the legendary Main Reading Room – stand empty and on the brink of destruction, a temporary restraining order the only thing holding the wrecking ball at bay.
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The man in the now-famous picture is a technologist with a background in computational linguistics and the founder of several ventures. As a boy, he – or rather, I – discovered, fell for and began to frequent the main library, known to New Yorkers as the 42nd Street Library, cradle to so many of the books that line our shelves and scene of such classics as Ghostbusters and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Now, if a secretive administration has its way, this library could end up a ghost of its former self. The library’s seven floors of book stacks – the structural support of the legendary Main Reading Room – stand empty and on the brink of destruction, a temporary restraining order the only thing holding the wrecking ball at bay.
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