The Bronx Library Center is a branch 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 a ...

in the Fordham section of

the Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. The library is located at 310 East Kingsbridge Road between

Fordham Road Fordham Road is a major thoroughfare in the Bronx, New York City, that runs west-east from the Harlem River to Bronx Park. Fordham Road houses the borough's largest and most diverse shopping district. It geographically separates the geopoli ...

and East 192nd Street, two blocks east of the Grand Concourse. It is the central library for the Bronx, and the largest library in the borough. The library opened in January 2006, replacing the Fordham Branch Library, which had previously served the Bronx. At , it is the first "

green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a com ...

" library in

with LEED Silver certification; it also has three times as much space as its predecessor. This building cost an estimated $50 million and is characterized by the sloping curve of its roof and the extensive glass curtain wall on the eastern

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

of the facade. The building was designed by the New York City-based

architecture firm In the United States, an architectural firm or architecture firm is a business that employs one or more licensure, licensed architects and practices the profession of architecture; while in South Africa, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark and ot ...

Dattner Architects, led by architect Richard Dattner.

Site

The library is in the Fordham Heights neighborhood of

, overlooking the shopping strip along Fordham Road and facing the old library on Bainbridge Avenue to the east. The massive new building is highly visible from East Kingsbridge Road, contrasting drastically with its neighboring buildings, which are primarily low-rise commercial or residential buildings. The Edgar Allan Poe Cottage,

Fordham University Fordham University is a Private university, private Society of Jesus, Jesuit research university in New York City, United States. Established in 1841, it is named after the Fordham, Bronx, Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx in which its origina ...

, the

New York Botanical Garden The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) is a botanical garden at Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. Established in 1891, it is located on a site that contains a landscape with over one million living plants; the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory, ...

, and the

Bronx Zoo The Bronx Zoo (also historically the Bronx Zoological Park and the Bronx Zoological Gardens) is a zoo within Bronx Park in the Bronx, New York City. It is one of the largest zoos in the United States by area and the largest Metropolis, metropol ...

are all nearby. It is close to the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system in New York City serving the New York City boroughs, boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. It is owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Tr ...

's at Kingsbridge Road ( IND Concourse Line) and the at Kingsbridge Road ( IRT Jerome Avenue Line). The

New York City Bus MTA Regional Bus Operations (RBO) is the bus operations division of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in New York City. The MTA operates local, limited-stop, express, and Select Bus Service ( bus rapid transit) services across the city ...

routes are also nearby.

Design

The library contains over 300,000 volumes, including the New York Public Library's central collection of Hispanic/Latino and Puerto Rican heritage works. The building is designed for the digital technology and social/civic functions as well as for books; it contains reading areas, a 150-person

auditorium An auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances. For movie theaters, the number of auditoriums is expressed as the number of screens. Auditoriums can be found in entertainment venues, community halls, and t ...

, computer rooms, staff offices, conference rooms, and a public gallery/gathering area, divided among the floors: *Basement or

concourse A concourse is a place where pathways or roads meet, such as in a hotel, a convention center, a railway station, an airport terminal, a hall, or other space. The term is not limited to places where there are literally pathways or roadways or t ...

level - auditorium and writing center. *Ground floor - Teen center and main circulation desk. *Second floor - Children's floor *Third floor - Adult circulating materials *Fourth floor - Reference materials with computer desks *Partial fifth floor - Career services center and conference room. The library also offers classes to the community including financial and career services to help people manage their money and improve their resume-writing in the pursuit of jobs.

Facade

The building is steel-framed and uses diverse materials in its construction that contrast with each other. The building is intended to be inviting on the interior and bold on the exterior. The exterior face of the library includes a multi-story glazed glass curtain wall (which stretches four stories and

cantilever A cantilever is a rigid structural element that extends horizontally and is unsupported at one end. Typically it extends from a flat vertical surface such as a wall, to which it must be firmly attached. Like other structural elements, a cantilev ...

s out from the main body of the library to dominate the facade's front elevation). Water-treated

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

red

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

panels are used on the rest of the facade and also extend into the interior of the library on the fourth floor towards the terrace. The signature swooping roof is clad in

aluminum Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

paneling on the exterior and

maple ''Acer'' is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the soapberry family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated si ...

veneer on the interior.

Maple ''Acer'' is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the soapberry family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated si ...

softens many of the other surface cladding. The swooping roofline also contributes to visibility and also allows a partial fifth floor for the building while also following setback regulations for the block.

Interior

While the public areas are lit by the glazing on the front elevation,

skylight A skylight (sometimes called a rooflight) is a light-permitting structure or window, usually made of transparent or translucent glass, that forms all or part of the roof space of a building for daylighting and ventilation purposes. History O ...

s above staff offices in the building's rear provide daylight for library workers. To help keep the library floors open, circulation is pushed to the back of the building as well. The main stair wraps around the elevator and is framed by a translucent glass wall to provide daylight. Patrons are expected to move through the library from back to front; from the stairs, through the stacks, and finally to the lounging and reading areas that are situated along the curtain wall. The main stair at the back of the library has a frosted channel glass wall, steel handrails, and

linoleum Linoleum is a floor covering made from materials such as solidified linseed oil (linoxyn), Pine Resin, pine resin, ground Cork (material), cork dust, sawdust, and mineral fillers such as calcium carbonate, most commonly on a Hessian fabric, hes ...

flooring. This floor surface is extended to other areas of the building in contrast with the

terrazzo Terrazzo is a composite material, poured in place or precast, which is used for floor and wall treatments. It consists of chips of marble, quartz, granite, glass, or other suitable material, poured with a cementitious binder (for chemical bind ...

and carpeting that weather the high foot traffic hardily.Russell Fortmeyer,
Let the Sun Shine In: A light-filled library becomes a dynamic meeting place for an underserved community
" (January 2007). '' GreenSource Magazine''. Bronx Library Center second floor interior

Bronx Library Center second floor interior

The Bronx Library Center is LEED Silver-certified and is the first "green" library in New York City; it includes many

sustainable architecture Sustainable architecture is architecture that seeks to minimize the negative environmental impact of buildings through improved efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, development space and the ecosystem at large. Sometimes, su ...

features. Approximately 40 percent of materials used in the construction of the library were manufactured locally (within 500 miles of the site). The majority of materials produced by the demolition of the Con Edison building on site before the library were recycled to be used in off-site locations. The library itself is composed of roughly 20 percent recycled material. In addition to using environmentally safe materials, chemical release into the atmosphere is further mitigated by water-cooled

chiller A chiller is a machine that removes heat from a liquid coolant via a vapor-compression refrigeration, vapor-compression, adsorption refrigeration, or absorption refrigerator, absorption refrigeration cycles. This liquid can then be circulated th ...

s. The mechanical

HVAC Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC ) is the use of various technologies to control the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air in an enclosed space. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality. ...

systems help provide building energy use of 20 percent less than code requires. The energy-efficient lighting systems and the extensive use of

sunlight Sunlight is the portion of the electromagnetic radiation which is emitted by the Sun (i.e. solar radiation) and received by the Earth, in particular the visible spectrum, visible light perceptible to the human eye as well as invisible infrare ...

are perhaps the boldest sustainable features of the library. The glazed curtain wall is composed of glass with a low

U-value The ''R''-value is a measure of how well a two-dimensional barrier, such as a layer of building insulation, insulation, a window or a complete wall or ceiling, resists the thermal conduction, conductive flow of heat, in the context of construct ...

for better insulating properties on the interior of the building. At times there may be too much daylight along the perimeter reading areas along the wall, so there are mechanized

nylon Nylon is a family of synthetic polymers characterised by amide linkages, typically connecting aliphatic or Polyamide#Classification, semi-aromatic groups. Nylons are generally brownish in color and can possess a soft texture, with some varieti ...

mesh shades to soften the light and light shelves that bounce some of the strongest light off of the surface and push it deeper into the spaces.

Photocell Photodetectors, also called photosensors, are devices that detect light or other forms of electromagnetic radiation and convert it into an electrical signal. They are essential in a wide range of applications, from digital imaging and optical c ...

sensors on the ceilings react to daylight levels and automatically change electric lighting intensities accordingly to save energy used. Overall, 75 percent of the interior spaces meet LEED criteria for the ratio of daylight to illuminated light.

History

For more than 75 years, the Fordham Library Center at 2556 Bainbridge Avenue, served the

borough A borough is an administrative division in various English language, English-speaking countries. In principle, the term ''borough'' designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely. History ...

before the new center opened in 2006. The library was part of a public library system built in the United States, supported by donations from wealthy businessman

Andrew Carnegie Andrew Carnegie ( , ; November 25, 1835August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American industrialist and philanthropist. Carnegie led the expansion of the History of the iron and steel industry in the United States, American steel industry in the late ...

. As part of the Carnegie library system it followed the philosophy of being accessible and free to all people with an emphasis on access and service to working class Americans. The library opened in 1923 and saw multiple expansions and renovations over the decades to continue serving a rapidly growing community. As immigrants (primarily of Irish, Italian and Jewish heritage) moved into the Bronx from

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, they used the library to learn to read and write English and become acclimated to American culture.Glenn Collins,
New Bronx Library Meets Old Need
(January 16, 2006), ''New York Times''. Compared to main branch libraries in the other outer boroughs, the Bronx building was significantly smaller taking up only three floors at a total of roughly 27,500 square feet. A renovation in 1956 proved to be the last; it would take nearly 50 years before enough money was raised to build a new, bigger, much needed building. The Fordham Library Center officially closed its doors to the public in November 2005. Two months later the Bronx Library Center opened right around the corner. It was the goal of the New York Public Library and the architects who designed the new library branch in the Bronx to continue the tradition of the accessible library model established by Carnegie. It would remain a welcoming place of learning for a new generation of immigrants primarily from the Caribbean and Latin America with Spanish being the new dominant language. A bigger piece of land was needed to accommodate the new building. Around the corner from the old Carnegie library was the site of a

Con Edison Consolidated Edison, Inc., commonly known as Con Edison (stylized as conEdison) or ConEd, is one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the United States, with approximately $12 billion in annual revenues as of 2017, and over $62 ...

building that closed in 1999; the building components were mostly recycled or sold for scraps to fund demolition. After a long fund-raising push in the late 1990s, with contributions from

New York State Legislature The New York State Legislature consists of the Bicameralism, two houses that act as the State legislature (United States), state legislature of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York: the New York State Senate and the New York State Assem ...

and allocation of funds by former

mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a Municipal corporation, municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilitie ...

Rudolph Giuliani Rudolph William Louis Giuliani ( , ; born May 28, 1944) is an American politician and disbarred lawyer who served as the 107th mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General fr ...

, the New York Public Library acquired the site for the new library in 2001. The Bronx Library Center is New York City's first "green" library, with many sustainable features. It's LEED Silver-certified and was built using environmentally safe materials, including recycled materials. The library also has energy-efficient lighting systems and water-cooled chillers to reduce chemical release into the atmosphereThe Bronx Library Center has a large Vejigante mask that hangs high above the floor. The mask is a piece of folk art that originated in Medieval Spain and is used to honor Saint James.

Programs and Services

The Bronx Library Center offers a variety of programs and services for children, teens, and adults. Adult programs include job and career support, social services assistance, fitness classes, technology instruction, and craft programs. Teen programs include movie nights, writing classes, crafts, and college and career advice. Children's programs including storytime, STEAM activities, Spanish workshops, and arts and crafts. Patrons can also apply for their IDNYC card at the Bronx Library Center. The IDNYC program, launched in 2015, is an identification card for all New Yorkers, regardless of immigration status. In addition to providing a broadly accepted form of identification, there are numerous benefits including free, one-year membership to museums and cultural institutions, and discounts at participating retailers.

Gallery

File:Bronx Library Center Concourse stair.jpg, ''Portrait of a Young Reader'', by Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, flanking the Concourse level stair File:Bronx Library Center Elevation.jpg, Front/Kingsbridge elevation File:Bronx Library Center main entrance.jpg, Main entrance off Kingsbridge Road File:Bronx Library Center Puerto Rican Heritage Collection.jpg, Puerto Rican Heritage Collection room File:Bronx Library Center interior ceiling.jpg, Fourth floor swooping ceiling view

References

Notes

External links

* {{Authority control New York Public Library branches Libraries in the Bronx Tourist attractions in the Bronx Education in the Bronx Fordham, Bronx