science

New York Public Library Main Branch

New York Public Library Main Branch is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand New York Public Library Main Branch rather than just read about it. In short: The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (commonly known as the Main Branch, the 42nd Street Library, or just the New York Public Library) is the flagship building in the New York Public Library system in the Midtown neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City.

Key takeaways

New York Public Library Main Branch belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect New York Public Library Main Branch to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of New York Public Library Main Branch from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (commonly known as the Main Branch, the 42nd Street Library, or just the New York Public Library) is the flagship building in the New York Public Library system in the Midtown neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The branch, one of four research libraries in the library system, has nine divisions. Four stories of the structure are open to the public. The main entrance steps are at Fifth Avenue at its intersection with East 41st Street. As of 2015, the branch contains an estimated 2.5 million volumes in its stacks. The building was declared a National Historic Landmark, a National Register of Historic Places site, and a New York City designated landmark in the 1960s. The Main Branch was built after the New York Public Library was formed as a combination of two libraries in the late 1890s. The site, along Fifth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets, is located directly east of Bryant Park, on the site of the Croton Reservoir. The architectural firm Carrère and Hastings constructed the structure in the Beaux-Arts style, and the structure opened on May 23, 1911. The marble facade of the building contains ornate detailing, and the Fifth Avenue entrance is flanked by a pair of stone lions that serve as the library's icon. The interior of the building contains the Main Reading Room, a space measuring 78 by 297 feet (24 by 91 m) with a 52-foot-high (16 m) ceiling; a Public Catalog Room; and various reading rooms, offices, and art exhibitions. The Main Branch became popular after its opening and saw four million annual visitors by the 1920s. It formerly contained a circulating library, though the circulating division of the Main Branch moved to the nearby Mid-Manhattan Library in 1970. Additional space for the library's stacks was constructed under adjacent Bryant Park in 1991, and the branch's Main Reading Room was restored in 1998. A major restoration from 2007 to 2011 was underwritten by a $100 million gift from businessman Stephen A. Schwarzman, for whom the branch was subsequently renamed. The branch underwent another expansion starting in 2018. The Main Branch has been featured in many television shows and films.

History

The consolidation of the Astor and Lenox Libraries into the New York Public Library in 1895, along with a large bequest from Samuel J. Tilden and a donation of $5.2 million from Andrew Carnegie, allowed for the creation of an enormous library system. The libraries had a combined 350,000 items after the merger, which was relatively small compared to other library systems at the time. As a point of civic pride, the New York Public Library's founders wanted an imposing main branch. While the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Fifth Avenue branch were both located on prominent sites facing Central Park in Manhattan, there was no such site available for a main library building; furthermore, most of the city's libraries were either private collections or small branch libraries.

Development

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with New York Public Library Main Branch

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what New York Public Library Main Branch claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to New York Public Library Main Branch before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about New York Public Library Main Branch ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of New York Public Library Main Branch

In research: New York Public Library Main Branch appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses New York Public Library Main Branch in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: New York Public Library Main Branch is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1910s architecture in the United States, 1911 establishments in New York City, Beaux-Arts architecture in New York City, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for New York Public Library Main Branch outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “New York Public Library Main Branch” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study New York Public Library Main Branch in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what New York Public Library Main Branch means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain New York Public Library Main Branch out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is New York Public Library Main Branch in simple terms?

Why does New York Public Library Main Branch matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study New York Public Library Main Branch?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on New York Public Library Main Branch.