December 12, 2005

Library map rooms to reopen after $5 mln renovation

Later this week, the new York Public Library will reopen its map rooms, restored to their 1911 Beaux-Arts-glory overlooking the corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, the New York Times reports.

Now called the Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division in honor of the after the principal sponsors, of the nine-month, $5 million effort, the ceilings and window have been cleaned of pollution that came in through the windows up until the 1980s and paint used to cover the arched windows during World War II. Some chandeliers had been covered with dirt, others had disappeared and were replaced at some point by fluorescents. back on display: blue-gray marble from Germany, carved walnut cartouches of griffins and cherubs.

Some of the New York Public Library's 420,000 maps, atlases and cartographic books -- the oldest dating to 1545 -- can be found online, but the best is yet to come.

The staff is working to create a geographical search engine - a cartographic user interface, as it were - that could relate maps to other collections of the library, such as the 500,000 images from its collections that have been digitized, including historic building photographs, posters, floor plans and subway construction blueprints.

Eventually, Mr. Knutzen explained, a user would be able to designate a location such as a tenement in which an ancestor once lived, then retrieve vintage images of the property as well as published articles, Census records and diary entries. The restoration is part of a $100-million, decades-long project to transform the interiors and exteriors of the library in time for the 2011 centennial rededication of the building.

December 12, 2005 06:43 PM in Architecture, Maps, Midtown, Sightsology

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