Humanities and Social Sciences Library, New York Public Library

Basement plan of the library

First floor plan of the library

Second floor plan of the library

Third floor plan of the library

Library from the corner of Fifth Avenue and 40th Street

Main entrance to the library

Close-up of the entrance

History personified on the north pediment of the facade of the library

The personification of Beauty on the facade of the library

Decorative columns on the facade of the library

The Carrere & Hastings building was created to be the centerpiece of the new library system that was to serve Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island. Therefore, the Humanities and Social Sciences Library was built as the main library in the Beaux-Arts design, which was extremely popular at the time. The structure was built to impress, suggesting the grandness of a Roman temple to knowledge but accessible to all the people.

The ornate façade of the building contains columns, a three-arched entrance that resembles a Roman triumphal arch, and statuary. This arch leads into Astor Hall, the largest free-standing marble structure in the world. All three Greek orders of columns (Doric, Ionic and Corinthian) were used on the three floors of the building. The columns on the arched main entrance are Ionic, with Corinthian columns decorating the façade of the building front.

The ornateness of the main library of NYPL is so extravagant that it is impossible to summarize what the façade of the building and the inside look like.