New York developers have made apartment buildings out of former hospitals, police stations, schools, and churches. Now, a library branch has undergone the transformation to luxury housing.
What was once the Rivington Street branch of the New York Public Library has been rebranded as a Lower East Side boutique co-op called, of course, “The Library.”
Purchased by a developer in 2018 and renovated into 11 high-end units, The Library is already luring buyers, even though it doesn’t look like the co-op redo transformation is finished. But it’s not much of a surprise that many of the units have been snapped up, considering the recent reinvention of the Lower East Side as a posh area.
Imagine Rivington Street the way it was in the early 1900s as part of a very different Lower East Side.
Opened in 1906 on a crowded block between Eldridge and Allen Streets, the Rivington branch was designed by McKim, Mead, & White in the popular Beaux-Arts style. The architectural firm was responsible for great public buildings like Penn Station, but they also took on smaller projects, such as the Tompkins Square NYPL branch on East 10th Street.
The Beaux-Arts design lent a sense of elegance to a building largely patronized by poor immigrants living in the neighborhood’s surrounding shoddy tenements.
The Rivington branch was one of the city’s new “Carnegie” libraries, funded by wealthy industrialist Andrew Carnegie (who lived in a spectacular Fifth Avenue mansion more than 100 blocks north). The main New York Public Library building was still under construction on 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue, set to open in 1911.
Like other neighborhood libraries, the Rivington Street branch quickly had a devoted following. Part of its popularity might be due to the open-air reading area on the roof, which proved to be a huge draw during the hot summer months, according to a 1910 New York Times article.
As the photo above shows, the roof really was for dedicated reading rather than sunbathing or goofing off. “Only children or adults actually engaged in reading are permitted to stay,” the Times wrote.
So how did the library branch end up as a co-op? I’m not sure when the branch was decommissioned as a library, but at that point a church took the building over. A developer bought it from the church in May 2018, renovating the former reading rooms and adding three stories.
What does it cost to live in a former library, where generations of New Yorkers read, dreamed, educated themselves, and stole some time away?
It’s not cheap. The five-room penthouse is in contract for more than $4 million, according to Streeteasy. At least the engraved plaque on the front that reads “New York Public Library” is still on the facade, a reminder of the building’s original purpose.
[Second photo: NYPL. Third photo: New-York Tribune, 1906. Fifth photo: NYPL]
Tags: Lower East Side Library NYPL, Rivington Street 1900s, Rivington Street Coops, Rivington Street Library, Rivington Street NYPL Branch, Tenement Block NYC
Ephemeral New York 
July 19, 2021 at 12:24 am |
I prefer the original roofline, but of course, developers gotta develop. Still, the penthouse looks grotesquely tacked on and dramatically out of character with the rest of the building. So I guess they won’t be getting my $4.5m for it!
July 19, 2021 at 7:11 am |
Never underestimate the lack of taste in certain types who move here
July 19, 2021 at 7:13 am |
Much of my family lived in the immediate neighborhood in the early 20th century. In most of the Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who landed on the LES, education was highly prized and cherished
July 19, 2021 at 5:30 pm |
Which probably explains the popularity of the library…and also tenements were so crowded, at least the library offered some peace!
July 22, 2021 at 4:00 pm |
While I’m sure it’s amazing inside … that penthouse just kills the whole character of the building. -_-