Mount Prospect Park, 1939.New [main branch of Brooklyn Public] Library is in [far right] background.Image courtesy of BPL.Brooklyn Public Library in New York City was established in 1896. Between 1901 and 1923, philanthropist Andrew Carnegie donated $1.6 million toward the development of twenty one branches.January 13, 1941. Entrance, Brooklyn Public Library (Ingersoll Memorial),Prospect Park Plaza, New York. Acetate negative by Samuel H. Gottscho.Ground was broken for a Brooklyn central library on Prospect Park Plaza (Grand Army Plaza) in 1912. The design of the original architect, Cornell-educated and Beaux-Arts-trained Raymond Almirall, called for a domed, four-story Beaux Arts abomination. Spiraling cost...
Book Vandals and the Dust Jackets of Joe Orton
Maury County, TN Library Director Elizabeth Potts shows one of several bookswhich have had “dirty” words marked through. Others have editorial comments added.Library books attacked by censors and vandals have recently been in the news. This is not strictly news; library patrons with blue pens and scissors have been a bane of librarians for centuries.Neatnik Censor Attacks Books NeatlyAccording to the Columbia, Tennessee Daily Herald, someone has been crossing out dirty words in books. Employees at the Maury County (TN) Library are not amused.“It bothers me because nobody is holding a gun to their head making them read these books,”...
Gerda Yourselves For Pleasure: Wegener Bared at NYC Rare Book Shop-Gallery
Scène de Carnaval. ca. 1920s. [11" x 16 7/8"] A fine selection of works by famed Art Deco book illustrator and painter Gerda Wegener is on exhibition at Leonard Fox Ltd, in the rare book dealer’s shop-gallery on Madison Avenue in New York City October 29 through November 25, 2009.A small section of the exhibition.Where to begin about Gerda Gottlieb Wegener Porta (1886-1940)? Many, this author included, were first introduced to the Danish artist through her spirited and playfully exquisite erotic imagery. But her initial success was as a fashion and contemporary scene illustrator for Vogue, La Vie Parisienne, Fantasio,...
Book Yourself Into The Library Hotel
Entrance to the Library HotelBibliophiles visiting New York City and in need of a space to check-into should check-out The Library Hotel, a beautiful luxury boutique hostelry conveniently located on Madison Avenue and 41st Street, also known as Library Way, just steps away from the majestic New York Public Library. Each floor has six rooms and is laid out according to the ten categories of the Dewey Decimal System: Social Sciences, Literature, Languages, History, Math & Science, General Knowledge, Technology, Philosophy, the Arts, and Religion. Each of the sixty exquisitely appointed rooms have been individually adorned with a collection of...
A "Witch" So Rare It’s Scary
Yes, some water-stains; it's a maritime novel, what'd you expect?This copy, apparently, skimmed the seas.Some days I wake up lucky. I now have before me one of the great rarities in American literature, the true first edition of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Water Witch. Published no later than September 18, 1830, the London edition followed in October, and the Philadelphia edition in the the Spring of 1831.Only sixteen copies of this, the Dresden edition, are known to exist: OCLC and KVK locate twelve copies in institutional collections worldwide, and ABPC records only four copies at auction within the last thirty-five...