The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, is located in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, at the

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 milli ...

on the

Upper West Side The Upper West Side (UWS) is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded by Central Park on the east, the Hudson River on the west, West 59th Street to the south, and West 110th Street to the north. The Upper West ...

, between the Metropolitan Opera House and the

Vivian Beaumont Theater The Vivian Beaumont Theater is a Broadway theater in the Lincoln Center complex at 150 West 65th Street on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Operated by the nonprofit Lincoln Center Theater (LCT), the Beaumont is the only Bro ...

. It houses one of the world's largest collections of materials relating to the performing arts. It is one of the four research centers of the

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress) ...

's Research library system, and it is also one of the branch libraries.

History

Founding and original configuration

Originally the collections that formed The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (LPA) were housed in two buildings. The Research collections on Dance, Music, and Theatre were located at the

New York Public Library Main Branch The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, commonly known as the Main Branch, 42nd Street Library or the New York Public Library, is the flagship building in the New York Public Library system in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City ...

, now named the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, and the circulating music collection was located in the 58th Street Library. A separate center to house performing arts was first proposed by Carleton Sprague Smith (chief of the Music Division) in a 1932 report to the library administration, "A Worthy Music Center for New York." (At the time, dance materials and sound recordings were all part of the Music Division.) There were attempts to create partnerships with

Rockefeller Center Rockefeller Center is a large complex consisting of 19 commercial buildings covering between 48th Street and 51st Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The 14 original Art Deco buildings, commissioned by the Rockefeller family, span th ...

(under construction at the time), the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...

, and the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

(to which

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

wanted to join as a partner). During the late 1930s and early 1940s, the Music Division produced a program of concerts (based on the model of the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

concerts in Coolidge Auditorium). These concerts were often held in conjunction with the Metropolitan Museum of Art and

Juilliard School The Juilliard School ( ) is a Private university, private performing arts music school, conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely ...

, and the program grew to include Lectures from New York University staff. After Lincoln Center was incorporated in 1956, an early mention of a possible "library and museum of the performing arts" appeared in June 1957. It was envisioned that a library-museum would serve to "interpret and illuminate the entire range of the performing arts". By December of that year, the library had become an accepted component of Lincoln Center planning and fundraising. Recalling his earlier reports, Smith produced a new report arguing for a move to Lincoln Center. Library administration officially approved of the move in June 1959. The building housing the library's research collections and the Vivian Beaumont Theater was the third building to be opened at Lincoln Center. Original plans conceived the library as a separate building, but prohibitive costs necessitated a combination of the Library and the Theater. As built, the Theater forms the central core of the building, the first and second floors occupying the southern and western sides, and the third-floor research collections providing a roof. Noted modernist architect Gordon Bunshaft, of the firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM), designed the interiors, and SOM consulted with

Eero Saarinen Eero Saarinen (, ; August 20, 1910 – September 1, 1961) was a Finnish-American architect and industrial designer noted for his wide-ranging array of designs for buildings and monuments. Saarinen is best known for designing the General Motors ...

and Associates (architect for the Vivian Beaumont Theater) on the exteriors.Allen Hughes, "Library and Museum 01 the Arts At Lincoln Center Ready Soon," ''The New York Times'' (October 21, 1965), p. 57. The Claire Tow Theater (belonging to Lincoln Center Theater) was built on the roof of the Library and opened in June 2012. The third floor, housing the research collections, opened to the public on July 19. The entire library was opened to the public on November 30, 1965, the fourth building to open at Lincoln Center. At its opening, it was called "Library and Museum of the Performing Arts". The Library's museum component was named the

Shelby Cullom Davis Shelby Cullom Davis (April 1, 1909 – May 26, 1994) was an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist from the state of New York. In 1947 he created Shelby Cullom Davis & Company, which became a leading investment firm. He later ser ...

Museum in honor of an investment banker who contributed $1 million to the Lincoln Center for museum purposes. At its opening, the Library's main lobby at the Lincoln Center Plaza entrance housed a bookstore, a film viewing area, and a listening area. The second floor included a children's performing arts collection as well as the Hecksher Oval, an enclosed space that could accommodate story-telling. Prior to the 2001 renovation, the children's collection was relocated to the Riverside Branch. The Hecksher Oval was removed as part of the renovation. The Shelby Cullom Davis Museum spaces included small and separate areas in the Dance, Music, Sound archive and Theater research divisions. Bigger galleries were the Vincent Astor Gallery on the 2nd floor, and galleries on the lower level and 2nd floor.

2001 renovation

From 1998 through 2001, the building was closed due to a $38 million renovation project designed by

Polshek Partnership Ennead Architects LLP (/ˈenēˌad/) is a New York City-based architectural firm. The firm was founded in 1963 by James Polshek, who left the firm in 2005 when it was known as Polshek Partnership. The firm's partners renamed their practice in mid- ...

. (The renovation was unrelated to the Lincoln Center renovations which commenced shortly after 2001.) During this time, the research collections were serviced from the NYPL's Annex (at 10th Avenue and 43rd Street), and the circulating collections were housed in the Mid-Manhattan Library at 40th Street and Fifth Avenue. LPA reopened to the public on October 29, 2001, with its building newly named Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center after a gift from the Cullmans (Dorothy was a trustee until she died in 2009; Lewis died in 2019). During the renovation, the library was wired to enable installation of numerous computers on each floor. There are nearly 200 publicly accessible computers in the building. Most are restricted to use of the library catalog and electronic databases or viewing the library's audiovisual material, but a few provide full Internet access. The renovation also created a Technology Training Room, with twelve desktop computers for users and one for a teacher, as well as a projection screen. Upon the building's original opening in 1965, each research division had a separate reading room. The renovation removed these and consolidated public areas into a single unified public reading area, with separate rooms for the Theater on Film and Tape Archive (its screening room named for

Lucille Lortel Lucille Lortel (née Wadler, December 16, 1900 – April 4, 1999) was an American actress, artistic director, and theatrical producer. In the course of her career Lortel produced or co-produced nearly 500 plays, five of which were nominated for ...

) and Special Collections (its room named for

Katharine Cornell Katharine Cornell (February 16, 1893June 9, 1974) was an American stage actress, writer, theater owner and producer. She was born in Berlin to American parents and raised in Buffalo, New York. Dubbed "The First Lady of the Theatre" by critic A ...

and

Guthrie McClintic Guthrie McClintic (August 6, 1893 – October 29, 1961) was an American theatre director, film director, and producer based in New York. Life and career McClintic was born in Seattle, attended Washington University and New York's American Aca ...

). Subsequently the Special Collections reading room was moved into a portion of the main reading area of the third floor, while a screening room for films held by the Jerome Robbins Dance Division and the Reserve Film and Video Collection (originally part of the Donnell Media Center, but absorbed into the Collection in 2008) took its place. Meanwhile, gallery space for the museum was consolidated into two main gallery spaces with smaller areas for display of other items. The Donald and Mary Oenslager Gallery is located on the first floor, adjacent to the Lincoln Plaza entrance, while the Vincent Astor Gallery (formerly on the second floor) is now located on the lower level, adjacent to the Amsterdam Avenue entrance. A small area near the Lincoln Center Plaza entrance houses caricaturist

Al Hirschfeld Albert Hirschfeld (June 21, 1903 – January 20, 2003) was an American caricaturist best known for his black and white portraits of celebrities and Broadway stars. Personal life Al Hirschfeld was born in 1903 in a two-story duplex at 1313 Carr ...

's desk and chair. The main corridors on the first and second floors are used for smaller exhibitions. The third floor has numerous display cases highlighting rotating displays of thematic groupings of artifacts from the collections. The renovation was not without detractors. Critic

Joseph Horowitz Joseph Horowitz (born 1948 in New York City) is an American cultural historian whose seven books mainly deal with the institutional history of classical music in the United States. As a producer of concerts, he has played a pioneering role in p ...

criticized the third floor in particular. Where previously each division had its own reading room, the renovation united all public reading areas into one room, resulting in less intimacy and more noise. Edmund Morris characterized the Special Collections reading room as "a charmless space... hich/nowiki> exudes a dispirited air of neglect."

Research collections

From its inception, LPA has had both a research component (funded mostly with private money) and a branch library component (funded with significant money from New York City, the remainder coming from private contributions).

Materials and formats

In addition to published works (for example, books, periodicals, and scores), the research divisions collect an enormous amount of unique material: Archival material (material that was created by or that once belonged to an individual or organization), text manuscripts,

music manuscript Music manuscripts are handwritten sources of music. Generally speaking, they can be written on paper or parchment. If the manuscript contains the composer's handwriting it is called an autograph. Music manuscripts can contain musical notation a ...

s, dance notation scores, typescripts, prompt books,

poster A poster is a large sheet that is placed either on a public space to promote something or on a wall as decoration. Typically, posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text ...

s, original set and costume designs,

programs Program, programme, programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program management, the process of managing several related projects * Time management * Program, a part of planning Arts and entertainment Audio * Progra ...

, and other

ephemera Ephemera are transitory creations which are not meant to be retained or preserved. Its etymological origins extends to Ancient Greece, with the common definition of the word being: "the minor transient documents of everyday life". Ambiguous in ...

are just some of the major categories of materials. The library's collection of sound recordings is in all formats that in themselves trace the history and development of sound recording. The library has 500,000 folders containing clippings on a variety of people and subjects pertaining to the performing arts. These clippings can sometimes provide a beginning to those at the initial stage of their research. The library also collects a variety of

iconography Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...

in various forms:

photographs A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now created ...

, lithographs, engravings, drawings, and others. A recent internal report estimated that LPA holds approximately 4.5 million photographs, including the recently acquired collection of New York photographer

Martha Swope Martha Joan Swope (February 22, 1928 – January 12, 2017) was an American photographer of theatre and dance. Early life and education Born in Tyler, Texas, she studied at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, before becoming a student at the School ...

, itself holding 1 million photographs. Much of this non-book material was not initially in the online catalog. Some materials are accessible through in-house card files and indexes. Policy since changed to bring as much of the material as possible into the main catalog, and by 2013, most of it was accessible in the catalog. Because of the enormous volume of material, some classes of it, such as the clipping files, has never been inventoried, although it is arranged in a retrievable manner with an alphabetical or chronological arrangement. Unlike most U.S. public libraries, the research collections stacks are located in non-public areas and are not available for browsing. Patrons must determine what they want to view, fill out call slips, and submit the slips to library staff. Library staff then retrieves the material for the patron. The holdings of LPA are divided by subject into divisions, which contain a number of special centers.

Music Division

The Music Division, as a founding division of The New York Public Library, is the oldest of all the divisions at LPA. Its origins stem from the private library of banker

Joseph William Drexel Joseph William Drexel (January 24, 1833 – March 25, 1888) was a banker, philanthropist, and book collector. Early life Joseph William Drexel was the son of Francis Martin Drexel (1792–1863) and Catherine Hookey (1795–1870). His siblings w ...

. Upon his death in 1888, his valuable library of 5,542 volumes and 766 pamphlets, known as the

Drexel Collection The Drexel Collection is a collection of over 6,000 volumes of books about music and musical scores owned by the Music Division of The New York Public Library. Donated by Joseph W. Drexel in 1888 to the Lenox Library (which later became The New Yo ...

, became part of the Lenox Library. The Astor Library also had an endowment that helped with the purchase of music. In 1895, upon the Lenox Library's consolidation with the Astor Library, the Music Division became one of the first subject divisions of The New York Public Library. According to ''The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz'', the library has particular strong manuscript holdings in

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

, These include 400 of

Benny Goodman Benjamin David Goodman (May 30, 1909 – June 13, 1986) was an American clarinetist and bandleader known as the "King of Swing". From 1936 until the mid-1940s, Goodman led one of the most popular swing big bands in the United States. His conc ...

's arrangements, and the arrangements made by Sy Oliver for musicians including

Duke Ellington Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was bas ...

, Jimmie Lunceford, and

Tommy Dorsey Thomas Francis Dorsey Jr. (November 19, 1905 – November 26, 1956) was an American jazz trombonist, composer, conductor and bandleader of the big band era. He was known as the "Sentimental Gentleman of Swing" because of his smooth-toned trombo ...

. It holds working scores of works by Ellington, and by

Charles Mingus Charles Mingus Jr. (April 22, 1922 – January 5, 1979) was an American jazz upright bassist, pianist, composer, bandleader, and author. A major proponent of collective improvisation, he is considered to be one of the greatest jazz musicians an ...

as well as extensive microlim copies of Mingus' manuscripts. Classical music manuscript holding include manuscripts by Bach,

Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped wit ...

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

, Glinka, Handel, Haydn, Korngold, Mozart, Paganini, Schubert, and Schumann.

Billy Rose Theatre Division

The Library has been collecting theatrical materials for years prior to 1931, when the executors of David Belasco's estate offered the producer's holdings on the condition that a division be created. The Theatre Collection (as it was initially known) began on September 1, 1931. The division opened at Lincoln Center as the Theatre Collection. In 1956 the theatre collection of the New York Public Library was recognized with a Special Tony Award. In 1979, it was renamed the

Billy Rose Billy Rose (born William Samuel Rosenberg; September 6, 1899 – February 10, 1966) was an American impresario, theatrical showman and lyricist. For years both before and after World War II, Billy Rose was a major force in entertainment, with s ...

Theatre Division, honoring a financial gift from the lyricist/producer's foundation. It is now the largest research division at the library, with holdings primarily on the theatre, and increasing on film, with some collections on the related subjects of vaudeville, magic, puppetry, and the circus. The Theater of Film and Tape Archive is administratively within the division. The Theatre division includes the Theatre on Film and Tape Archive (TOFT) which produces video recordings of New York and regional theater productions, and provides research access at its

screening room. The collection is considered one of the most comprehensive collections of videotaped theater productions in the world. Archives modeled on TOFT include the

Museum of Performance & Design The Museum of Performance + Design, formerly the San Francisco Performing Arts Library & Museum, is located in the Bayview District of San Francisco, California at 2200 Jerrold Avenue, Ste. T. The Museum collects and makes accessible materials ab ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

, the Washington Area Performing Arts Video Archive established in Washington, D.C., and the

National Video Archive of Performance The National Video Archive of Performance is a film and video archive in London, England which holds recordings of stage performances. In 1992 the Theatre Museum, a branch museum of the Victoria & Albert Museum, began recording stage performance in ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. The core of the collection consists of live recordings of Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, with some additional productions from professional regional theaters. The Archive also records interviews and dialogues with notable theater professionals. In addition to live performances, commercial recordings of theater-related films, documentaries, and television programs are also included in the collection. Currently between 50 and 60 live recordings are produced each year, covering most important productions. As of fall of 2016, the collection included 7,901 titles.2016 Annual Report

Jerome Robbins Dance Division

The Jerome Robbins Dance Division began in 1944 under the auspices of Genevieve Oswald. Originally dance materials were part of the Music Division (when it was known as the "Dance Collection"), but its growth necessitated hiring a full-time staff member in 1947.Williams, p. 151. Acquisitions were augmented by gifts of papers of

Ted Shawn Ted Shawn (born Edwin Myers Shawn; October 21, 1891 – January 9, 1972) was a male pioneer of American modern dance. He created the Denishawn School together with his wife Ruth St. Denis. After their separation he created the all-male company T ...

and Ruth St. Denis, Doris Humphrey,

Charles Weidman Charles Weidman (July 22, 1901 – July 15, 1975) was a renowned choreographer, modern dancer and teacher. He is well known as one of the pioneers of modern dance in America. He wanted to break free from the traditional movements of dance for ...

, and

Hanya Holm Hanya Holm (born Johanna Eckert; 3 March 1893 – 3 November 1992) is known as one of the "Big Four" founders of American modern dance. She was a dancer, choreographer, and above all, a dance educator. Early life, connection with Mary Wigman B ...

. With the gift of a collection of Walter Toscanini in honor of his deceased wife, Cia Fornaroli (a dancer), the Dance Collection became an internationally known repository. Due to its subsequent growth and increasing importance, the collection was formally recognized as a separate division on January 1, 1964. One of the division's most significant resources is the Jerome Robbins Archive of the Recorded Moving Image. Endowed with a gift from Jerome Robbins, this archive collects and preserves moving images of dance, making them available to researchers. The Archive has received many gifts from dancers and choreographers and contains many privately made films and video. The Division's

oral history Oral history is the collection and study of historical information about individuals, families, important events, or everyday life using audiotapes, videotapes, or transcriptions of planned interviews. These interviews are conducted with people wh ...

program began formally in 1965. These oral histories are particularly valuable since they provide information, history and context not generally available in published sources.

Reserve Film and Video

Though not technically a part of the Research divisions, the Reserve Film and Video Collection (formerly the Donnell Media Center) is serviced from the third floor. For film and video that must be viewed onsite, there is a screening room (large enough for classes) equipped with a 16 mm projector. There are also moviolas and Steenbeck equipment, permitting close frame-by-frame examination and analysis.

Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound

The origins of the Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound can be traced to a gift of 500 78-rpm records by Columbia Records in 1937 to the Music Division. Successive gifts by record companies and individuals led to the formal creation of a separate division with the opening of the building at Lincoln Center in 1965. It was named in exchange for a private donation from the Rodgers and Hammerstein organization. Radio station WQXR donated 11,000 78 rpm recordings in 1966. Carleton Sprague Smith envisioned the purpose of the sound archive as "stimulating interest among recording and broadcasting executives, as well as other arts institutions that had potential for playing a cooperative role." Resources include the Rigler-Deutsch Index, which lists of library's extensive holdings of

78 rpm A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near ...

records.

Branch (Circulating) Collections

A portion of the circulating DVDs 20110913

The beginnings of the circulating music collection are due in great part to its first head librarian, Dorothy Lawton."Dorothy Lawton, Librarian, 85, Dies," ''The New York Times'' (February 21, 1960), p. 92. Lawton took part in the establishment of the music collection at the 58th Street Library in 1920, beginning with a collection of 1,000 books and scores. In 1924, the circulating music collection was officially established as part of the 58th Street Library. Her passion for dance enabled her to get unusual publications, so much that dance critic John Martin complimented her on the growing collection of dance books. In 1929, the 58th Street Library began a collection of recordings beginning with gifts from Victor and Columbia records, amounting to 500 records. Upon building a listening booth, Lawton reported that by 1933, the listening booth was constantly booked two weeks in advance. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, she established a concert series for servicemen on Sundays from 3–7 PM. Servicemen could request selections of their choice and could also participate in playing chamber music with instruments that had been loaned to the Library. She established the Orchestra Collection, a set of scores and parts that could be loaned to groups for performance. Currently, the Orchestra Collection loans parts to more than 2,000 works. Upon Lawton's retirement in 1945, chief music critic of ''The New York Times'' Olin Downes complimented her on the development of the 58th Street Library, and remarked on her achievements such as attracting donors and enlisting the concern and help of professional musicians. (Many of the rare items that were gifts to the 58th Street Branch were subsequently moved to the Music Division.) After retiring, Lawton returned to the country of her birth, England, and help organize a newly created music collection at Central Music Library of the Buckingham Palace Road Library (today the Westminster Music Library), modeling the new library on the one she established at 58th Street. Currently, the Circulating collections loan books on music, dance, theater, film, and arts administration. They also loan scores, scripts, CDs, videotapes, DVDs, and sets of orchestral parts.

Shelby Cullom Davis Museum

The museum component of LPA takes the form of exhibitions in its two main exhibition spaces, The Donald and Mary Oenslager Gallery and the Vincent Astor Gallery, as well as a walled area in the plaza entrance, and additionally display cases distributed throughout the building. Among the purposes of the exhibitions is to show to all visitors that the millions of items belonging to the library are not for the exclusive use of scholars but for anyone who walks in the door. Exhibitions highlights items from the library's collections and keep the name of the library before the public, attracting new and potential donations. Since the late 1990s, NYPL's exhibitions program has added online exhibitions. Online exhibitions serve as an extension of physical exhibitions, adding more material or allowing a greater depth of exploration.

Public programs

Public programs are free of charge and take place in the 202-seat Bruno Walter Auditorium located on the lower level. The auditorium is used several times a week for musical performances, film screenings and lectures.About Public Programs at the Library for the Performing Arts

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Archives in the United States Library buildings completed in 1965 Lincoln Center Museums in Manhattan New York Public Library branches in Manhattan Performing arts museums in the United States Research libraries in the United States Sound archives in the United States Special collections libraries in the United States Special Tony Award recipients Television archives in the United States Theatre archives