Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library

455 5th Avenue | also 6 East 40th Street, 453 5th Avenue | Midtown | built 1915

Open on the map6 entries

The lot about 1940
About 1940. Via 1940s.nyc
The lot about 1985
About 1985. Via 80s.nyc

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.

  1. 1914

    October 4

    The New York Sun reports Arnold Constable will move to Frederick Vanderbilt's corner at 40th Street

    On October 4, 1914, the New York Sun reports that Arnold, Constable & Co. will move the next September to a new building Frederick W. Vanderbilt is to put up on the lot of his own home at Fifth Avenue and 40th Street. The paper calls the move the last chapter in the fall of the old department store zone, since no department store would then remain on Broadway between 14th and 23rd streets.

    Source: The Bowery Boys

  2. 1915

    November

    Arnold Constable opens its Fifth Avenue store across from the library's main branch

    Arnold, Constable & Co.'s new department store opens in November 1915, catty-corner to the New York Public Library's main branch. It is one of the last holdouts of the Ladies' Mile shopping district to move uptown. The store stays open here for sixty years, until 1975.

    Source: The Bowery Boys

  3. 1970

    October

    The Mid-Manhattan Library opens on the old department store's upper floors

    The New York Public Library opens the Mid-Manhattan Library in October 1970 on the fourth through sixth floors of the Arnold Constable building, after a renovation by Bloch & Hesse. The circulating collection and the children's library of the Main Branch move to the new site. It is the 80th branch in the library system and opens while the library faces severe fiscal shortfalls.

    Source: Wikipedia

  4. 1982

    February

    The Mid-Manhattan Library officially opens in the former Arnold Constable building and receives the Picture Collection

    After Giorgio Cavaglieri redesigns the lobby in 1980, the Mid-Manhattan Library moves back into the Arnold Constable building and officially opens in February 1982. Two months later the library's 2.5 million-item Picture Collection arrives. By 1986 a privately funded stained glass window sits above the main entrance, and the library draws over 8,000 visitors a day.

    Source: Wikipedia

  5. 2014

    May

    The Central Library Plan is abandoned, saving the Mid-Manhattan Library from closure

    In May 2014 the Central Library Plan is abandoned after a long fight and two lawsuits brought in the public interest. The plan would have closed the Mid-Manhattan Library and sent over a million books to storage in New Jersey. In June the New York Public Library's trustees announce a new plan that includes rehabilitating the Mid-Manhattan branch.

    “…the plan was abandoned in May 2014 due to pressure by its opponents and the election of Bill de Blasio as mayor.”

    Source: Wikipedia

  6. 2021

    June

    The renovated building reopens as the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library

    The New York Public Library opens the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, a new central circulating library at 455 Fifth Avenue, after a $200 million renovation. Mecanoo, working with Beyer Blinder Belle, built the 180,000-square-foot library within the shell and steel frame of the former Mid-Manhattan Library. It has a light-filled atrium and a rooftop terrace, the only rooftop in Midtown that is both free and open to the public.

    Source: 6sqft

Further reading

Nearby

All 178 buildings with stories in Midtown