Gothamist: NYPL Main Branch Not Quitting Books After All

Last year fans of the New York Public Library's main branch by Bryant Park (the Schwarzman Building, if you must) had a collective freakout when it was announced that NYPL president Anthony Marx wanted to move the stacks out of the glorious temple to books and ship them to New Jersey. Deep breath everybody, that isn't going to happen anymore!

After public outcry and an $8 million donation, the Library board yesterday agreed to change the $300 million Central Library Plan so that 3.3 million of the building's 4.5 million volumes can stay on site. Thanks to the donation—from trustee Abby Milstein and her banker husband Howard—the library says it can "develop the lower level of the Bryant Park Stack Extension (BPSE), two floors of storage space underneath Bryant Park that is connected to the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. The facility was opened in 1991, but at the time, only one floor was outfitted to store valuable research material."