The Croton Reservoir was there before they built the Library. It was an above ground reservoir, and was torn down because it was no longer needed after the introduction of NY's new water tunnel system in the 1890s.

This is one of those iconic buildings that seem like they've been around forever. It's funny to think about what might have been there before the library. And without the cats I almost didn't recognize it!

And I can hardly walk past or think about this building without being reminded of Ghostbusters!

Astonishing to think that only thirty one years separates this library from the Brooklyn Public Library, though. And the ladies in long skirts here from the librarians and readers in Brooklyn who'd pass unnoticed even today.

https://www.shorpy.com/node/6840

https://www.shorpy.com/node/6861

For a long while I thought the figures on the entablature were high reliefs rather than statues, but this picture clearly shows only one of the six figures and five empty plinths. So they're full statues, one supposes. The figures look to be six: four female. Anyone know who or what they represent?

Oh yeah, and those cats ain't there yet either.

The area directly behind the Library is Bryant Park a 10 acre tract of parkland and a survivor of the bad old days. Those days being in the 80s, the 1980s that is, when the streets of midtown weren't safe. A consortium of HBO, and other local businesses (mine included) formed the Bryant Park Business Improvement Development Corporation (BID). Along with the Midtown South NYPD Police Precinct they cleared the drug dealers and other assorted derelicts from the park and it became a lunchtime Oasis for the people that worked in the area.

were sitting up in the Piccirilli Brothers studio in the Bronx waiting for the trip to their Fifth Avenue perch.

were put in place in 1911.

I'm getting cramps thinking about lifting all that masonry!

It's incredible to see this building without its iconic cats.

...they'll be bringing in a bunch of books and a couple of lions.

Amazing to see it nearly complete, under construction. Today, they are talking about selling the public libraries to private contractors - what a sad state of affairs 100 years later! All because of mismanagement of power and wealth.

Makes 100 years ago look like a Golden Age in America!

I would be concerned about walking under that sidewalk roof with all the loose bricks on it - easy top knock on off on a head! What were they building there in the foreground?

A classic photo, and probably only one of a few for public view taken of the great building before the lion scuptures were placed on their pedestals near the front steps.

The library was still being finished--barricades at the stairs, rubble, etc.--but the part of this photo that's really interesting to me is the remnant of the Reservoir wall that's almost completely demolished at the north side of the new building.

Like a penny, newly minted, gleaming in the morning light.