Details in a Masterpiece

Every time I go on a tour, I think, “Do I have to? Tours are boring and the tour guides are always such dull, old people! Do I really want to risk getting a bad tour guide?” Most tours may not take money out of your pocket, but they can take a lot out of you physically and mentally. If you do not get lucky, you spend your entire time wondering how much longer the tour will last and thinking about the wasted time. As I walked down 5th Avenue on my way to the New York Public Library, I wondered whether I would get lucky. On a hot, Sunday afternoon, I did not feel like going anywhere. Would anyone else show up for the tour? After all, the library gives tours once every Sunday and twice every weekday except for Monday. Who would want to go on an indoor tour when they could go to the beach or some park and get a tan? I soon found that a small tour group, consisting of about five people, with a personable, middle-aged woman as your tour guide can push all the boredom and risks away.
I arrived five minutes early in a hurry to get the tour over with, and the tour guide came five minutes later in a hurry to start the tour on time. The hostess introduced herself to the five of us and asked some questions about our backgrounds. Then she started with a few basic facts. Two families brought their book collections together to found the library in 1895. The main library on 5th Avenue houses over 88 miles of bookshelves, and even more books are stored under the adjacent Bryant Park. It also contains the largest collection of Jewish books and newspapers in the country. You can read a Yiddish version of Sherlock Holmes or Hebrew text books.
Various artifacts and historical items throughout the library compete to sidetrack your attention. During the baseball season, the library displays a collection of valuable baseball cards. It also displays the Gutenberg Bible and a small globe made around the time when Columbus discovered the Americas. One of the hallways contains prints of maps and drawings of the American Revolution. Our guide told us that Thomas Jefferson’s version of the Declaration of Independence was edited before its passage because the states would not unanimously pass the original. Only two unedited versions of the original document exist, and the library puts one of them on display during July every year.
Air conditioning cools individual rooms, but the building as a whole does not have air conditioning. Inside, a new building exists, not visible from the street. The building is a masterpiece. The builders constructed Astor Hall completely with marble from Vermont. Marble from Greece makes up the hallways of the library. Our hostess pointed out that you can feel the difference between the marble from Vermont and the marble from Greece in their texture. One of the exhibition rooms is made of Italian marble, as well. The main exhibition room contains the only wooden ceiling in the building, and its bronze doors are modeled after doors found at the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. Stucco makes up the wooden look the rest of the ceilings possess. The tour guide pointed out small, interesting facts you normally would not think important for a tour. She told us about the areas where drinking fountains were located. The structures of the fountains still exist, but due to lead pipes, the library cut the water supply.
Our hostess pointed out two things, however, that captured my attention above all else. First, the design of the building and its contents interested me. Most specifically, the use of nature and animals throughout the building caught my eye. As you enter the building, two lions greet you. Their names are Patience and Fortitude. Early art critics thought they looked too friendly, but studies later proved their realistic nature. The sculptor of the lions received the job after he made two similar lionesses at nearby Morgan Library. At one time, people decorated Patience and Fortitude for the holidays. For the baseball season, the lions would wear baseball caps, but the decorating stopped when the embellishments began to harm the lion’s marble. Looking up above the columns in Astor Hall, you notice a small Bumblebee carved into the marble ceiling. The light fixtures in Astor Hall follow a beast motif with beast-like creatures carved into the fixtures. On one of the ceilings in the building, a woman, made of leaves from the waste down, looks down at you. In the Rose main reading room, original tables depict serpents, benches show gryphons and New York State’s seal with a beaver, and carved dolphins decorate the wooden walls.
The second thing that won my immediate attention was the McGraw Rotunda room, full of huge paintings depicting different forms of print. A large ceiling painting watches over four other images. One painting shows Moses receiving the Ten Commandments. Another painting shows a monastery where monks copy books. The latter painting depicts two books: a prayer book for the entire monastery and a girdle book, a prayer book for personal use. The Gutenberg Bible appears in another painting, but the artist, Edward Lanning, leaves the most intriguing piece of art in the last of these paintings. The last image on a large scale portrays an old fashion newspaper company in New York City, but if you look closely, you’ll find the artist chose to leave his signature on a small part of this painting. In the bottom right corner, on an image of a small piece of paper left on the ground of the newspaper company, the artist signs his name. The painting also depicts a letter to Phelps Stokes, the man who enabled Lanning to take on the painting job. The letter seems small compared to the large paintings in the room, but once someone points it out, you cannot forget that individual part of the painting.
The small details in such a huge building make the New York Public Library unique. Our tour guide made sure we knew her own personal favorite elements of the building as well as the details that help the library to stand out from all other libraries. I have always appreciated art, and this tour gave me a chance to gain a deeper understanding of it. The building captured my heart. I went in anxious to leave, I left anxious to return.