The Bronx (Library) is Back

-- Library Journal, 01/19/2006

With a 50-year veteran doo-wop group serenading visitors and a host of dignitaries, the New York Public Library (NYPL) on January 17 celebrated the opening of the grand new Bronx Library Center, a $50 million, 78,000-square foot building that will serve as the largest public library in the still-emerging borough. The modernistic library, with its swooping roof, sits on land formerly occupied by a parking lot, and represents a jump-start for a working class area near Fordham Road that includes a tattoo parlor and psychic reader as the library's neighbors. The library features a Latino and Puerto Rican Cultural Center, a recognition of the diverse borough's currently prominent ethnic groups; 127 internet-accessible computers for public use; an outdoor reading terrace; areas designated for children and teens; a technology training center; a 150-seat auditorium; and a 54' by 17' glass tile art installation depicting the DNA sequence of a young person, by Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle.

As public officials, visitors, and library officials (including Bronx-born Susan Kent, director of NYPL's Branch Libraries) packed the 150-seat auditorium for the dedication, residents were already taking advantage of comfortable seating upstairs, and teachers were trooping in with junior library aficionados. The building is three times the size of the predecessor building, just a block away, built in 1923.