Ottendorfer Library
135 2nd Avenue | East Village | built 1884
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1883
William Schickel designs the library and its neighboring dispensary
Architect William Schickel designs the Ottendorfer Library and the adjoining German Dispensary as a matched pair in the round-arched Rundbogenstil style, built of red brick with terra-cotta trim, including cherubs and busts of the medical figures Aesculapius and Galen. Newspaper publisher Oswald Ottendorfer funds the pair of buildings to serve the German immigrant community's health and education.
- 1884
Oswald and Anna Ottendorfer's free library opens with a German-language collection
Oswald Ottendorfer and his wife Anna paid for this library and the Stuyvesant Polyclinic next door as gifts to the city. Designed by William Schickel, the library opened on December 7, 1884, as a branch of the New York Free Circulating Library, with 8,819 volumes, 4,035 of them in German.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1884
The dispensary next door is dedicated as a memorial to Anna Ottendorfer
Anna Ottendorfer bought the land in 1883 and hired the architect William Schickel, and that November Empress Augusta of Germany honored her philanthropy with a silver medal of merit. She died in early 1884, before either building opened. The dedication of the German Dispensary on May 27, 1884 doubled as a memorial service for her, and the library her husband Oswald gave alongside it opened that December.
“The dedication on May 27, 1884 of the Dispensary was also a memorial service for her.”
- 1887
The Free Circulating Library installs its bindery in the Ottendorfer basement
The New York Free Circulating Library put its bindery in the Ottendorfer Branch's basement, where it started work in 1887. For many years it served as the central bindery for the whole New York Public Library system as well. Also in 1887, a state law added public money to the library's budget, which had been entirely private until then.
- 1900
A children's room opens on the floor once planned as a women's reading room
The library's second floor was originally designed with a separate reading room for women. In 1900 the library set up a children's room there, as part of an effort to serve children better and encourage reading from an early age.
“In 1900 a special children's room was established there as part of an attempt to increase service to children…”
- 1900
Oswald Ottendorfer leaves the library a bequest upon his death
Oswald Ottendorfer, the German-language newspaper publisher who built the library with his wife Anna in 1884, dies in 1900 and leaves the library and its neighboring dispensary a combined $20,000 bequest. The branch keeps serving German-speaking readers for decades; a 1964 New York Times report finds up to a quarter of its roughly 24,000 books still in German, a legacy that thins to about 30 volumes by the library's 125th anniversary in 2009.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1901
The Ottendorfer branch becomes part of the New York Public Library
In 1901 the Free Circulating Library's eleven branches merged into the new New York Public Library, and the Ottendorfer joined the system, where it still operates. As the neighborhood changed it added books in Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Spanish, Chinese and other languages. Its exterior was landmarked in 1977 and its interior in 1981.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1964
A 1964 report finds a quarter of the Ottendorfer's 24,000 books still in German
By the 1960s the Ottendorfer was the oldest library building in New York City that had been designed as a library and still served as one. A 1964 New York Times article reported that up to a quarter of its 24,000 books were still in German, long after the exodus of Little Germany.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1977
The city designates the library's exterior a landmark
New York City designates the Ottendorfer Library's exterior a landmark in 1977, followed by interior landmark status for its first and second floors in 1981. A $2.1 million renovation between 1998 and 2001 restores the building, which the New York Public Library still operates as its oldest branch in Manhattan and one of the city's earliest buildings built specifically as a library.
Source: Wikipedia
- 1998
The Ottendorfer closes for a $2.1 million Adopt-a-Branch renovation
In October 1998 the library closed for a renovation budgeted at $2.1 million, paid for with $1.6 million from the city and a $500,000 grant from the Scherman Foundation. It was an Adopt-a-Branch project, a program that mixed private and public funding at seven branches. Macrae-Gibson Architects designed the work to echo the library's original appearance. The renovation was finished by mid-2001.
Source: Wikipedia
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