New York Public Library, Tottenville Branch

7430 Amboy Road | Tottenville | built 1904

Open on the map4 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. 1901

    March 16

    Frank Joline files the first request for Andrew Carnegie's library money

    On the day newspapers reported Andrew Carnegie's gift for branch libraries, Tottenville Library Association president Frank Joline sent in an application for a building. Two accounts say it was the first one the City Comptroller received, and that he joked the committee must have started work before breakfast. The two-year-old free library then held almost 3,400 volumes and had no building of its own.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  2. 1903

    Carrère & Hastings design a Carnegie branch with a rustic classical face

    Carrère & Hastings, architects of the main New York Public Library, designed the Tottenville building as one tall story over a raised basement under a flared hipped roof. A Tuscan portico set between brick side walls marks the entrance, flanked by two reading-room wings with round-arched windows. Theodore W. Koch's book on Carnegie libraries called it unpretentious but most attractive.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  3. 1904

    November 26

    Tottenville opens its Carnegie library with speeches and a Philharmonic Club concert

    The new branch opened on a Saturday afternoon with Staten Island Borough President George Cromwell presiding for the city. George L. Rives spoke for the New York Public Library's trustees, and the Tottenville Philharmonic Club played. Books began circulating from the building the next Monday, and the local library association that had founded the collection in 1899 disbanded.

    “The festive opening of the new library building took place on Saturday afternoon, November 26, 1904.”

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

  4. 1935

    Librarian Ella Wagar gathers Tottenville's memories in a binder for the library's birthday

    For the library's thirty-first birthday, branch librarian Ella E. Wagar directed the collection of residents' recollections into a loose-leaf binder titled "Our Fathers Have Told Us." The landmarks report notes that researchers of Tottenville's past still used it when the report was written. A Works Progress Administration project renovated the library's interior the following year.

    Source: NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

Nearby

All 9 buildings with stories in Tottenville