Lisa D.
Yelp
"We visit at the shrine, drink in some measure of the inspiration, and cannot easily breathe in other air less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits."--Hazlitt, "Plain Speaker"
"In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends imprisoned by an enchanter in paper and leathern boxes"--Emerson, "Books, Society, and Solitude."
"He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink; his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller parts."--Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost."
"I ever look upon a library with the reverence of a temple."--Evelyn, to Wotton.
'Father, I should like to learn to make gold.' 'And what would'st thou do if thou could'st make it?' 'Why, I would build a great house and fill it with books.'--Southey, Doctor.
While you converse with lords and dukes,
I have their betters here, my books;
Fixed in an elbow chair at ease
I choose companions as I please.
I'd rather have one single shelf
Than all my friends, except yourself.
For, after all that can be said,
Our best companions are the dead.
--Sheridan to Swift.
Take me to some lofty room,
Lighted from the western sky,
Where no glare dispels the gloom,
Till the golden eve is nigh;
Where the works of searching thought,
Chosen books, may still impart
What the wise of old have taught,
What has tried the meek of heart;
Books in long dead tongues that stirred
Loving hearts in other climes;
Telling to my eyes, unheard,
Glorious deeds of olden times:xiii
Books that purify the thought,
Spirits of the learned dead,
Teachers of the little taught,
Comforters when friends are fled.
--Barnes, Poems of Rural Life.
(quoted in "Hours in a Library" by Leslie Stephen)
"The Battery Park City Branch is New York Public Library's first green LEED certified branch in Manhattan. The bright 10,000 square-foot, two-story branch houses a collection of over 23,000 items, separate reading areas for children, young adults, and adults, a multipurpose programming space, and offers access to 36 public computers and a wide range of services for the community." (quoted from NYPL's Web site).
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The Battery Park City Branch of the NYPL is world's better than the New Amsterdam branch on the other side of West Side Highway on Murray St. and might just usurp the Mulberry Street branch as my favorite branch of all. This is one of the only branches I would recommend for doing anything other than picking up books or dvds on reserve. There is ample space for reading/working, and the environment is clean and sleek rather than dingy and depressing like just about every other branch from New Amsterdam all the way up to Morningside Heights and (not least of all) the main Mid-Manhattan branch. Moreover, the Battery Park City Branch actually has substantial holdings in both new releases and reference materials. This last detail ought not to be overlooked---most other locations function much like Netflix pickup depots and are basically useless to the casual library user looking for anything from sources for a research paper to an interesting new novel, let alone a particular book. As someone who has spent hours upon hours in all types of libraries, I had yet to find a branch of the NYPL in which to do just that...until now....and if you don't want to sit cooped up inside on a nice day, this location is close enough to Battery Park to take a great book to read outside while overlooking the Hudson.
