Are you fucking kidding me? Is this really happening? Who is paying who, and how much?

From www.savenypl.org -

STOP THE CENTRAL LIBRARY PLAN

The Central Library Plan, at enormous cost to the city and its taxpayers, would irreparably damage the 42nd Street Research Library – one of the world's great reference libraries and a historic landmark. The New York Public Library administration plans to demolish the historic seven-story book stacks, install a circulating library in their stead, and displace 1.5 million books to central New Jersey. The new circulating library would be a reduced-size replacement for the Mid-Manhattan Library and SIBL (Science, Industry and Business Library), which would both be sold.

This plan was created through a closed process with no public input, and has been condemned by leading architecture critics such as Ada Louise Huxtable in the Wall Street Journal and Michael Kimmelman in the New York Times.

• It will cost $350 million (probably more), of which $150 million will come from New York City taxpayers.

• It will jam patrons into a new circulating library only one-third the size of the existing Mid-Manhattan Library and SIBL.

• It will threaten the 42nd Street Library’s role as one of the world’s great research libraries, and threaten the architectural integrity of the landmarked 42nd Street building.

• It does not take into consideration more efficient and less destructive alternatives, such as combining SIBL and the Mid-Manhattan into a rehabilitated and expanded building on the Mid-Manhattan site.

The NYPL administration allowed no opportunity for public participation or oversight when they formulated this plan. Despite the fact that the 42nd Street building is owned by the city and is one of our most iconic structures, the $150 million that the city has earmarked for the project was awarded without oversight by the City Council and with no public hearings. If alternatives have been considered they have never been disclosed, and no cost-benefit analysis or detailed budget has ever been presented.

The Committee to Save the NYPL calls for a halt to this plan until an independent agency can conduct a detailed cost analysis. This analysis should also evaluate the costs of renovating the Mid-Manhattan building. As Michael Kimmelman states in his scathing New York Times review of the CLP, "A new Mid-Manhattan branch should cost a fraction of gutting the stacks and could produce much better architecture.”

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