Narcissists: There’s a New Category Called “The Communal Narcissist”— Why Is That Something Library Defenders Would Want To Know More About?

Putting together a few thoughts about narcissism and those who sell libraries-  Clockwise from top, an article about "communal narcissists", work of Wendy Behary and her list of traits, Anand Giridharadas and his book about wealthy philanthropists, Dr. Ramani Durvasula's video about four kinds of narcissists.

Why would those defending the libraries want to know about what is supposed to be a particular kind of narcissist?  We will get to that. 

The subject of narcissism in the classic psychology sense can be fascinating, particularly when we now seem to be living in a culture that encourages traits that might easily be defined as problematic manifestations of the syndrome, even rewarding them by with positions of authority or high office.

This isn’t necessarily our area of expertise, and we note that, when you look into it, there are various psychologists who have gotten involved in making lists of the different kinds of narcissists into which they believe narcissists overall can be classified.  Those lists and categories frequently don’t seem to match, not in number or in category.  And then there are lists offering “sub-types”!

Reading about the traits assigned to some of these supposed categories it seems that many of those “differentiating” traits are actually all possessed together by many of the most pronounced narcissists. .  . Are they vain about their appearance and physical traits or vain about their brain– or vain about both?  Are they “High-Functioning, Exhibitionist, or Grandiose Narcissists” openly bragging and seeking attention, or are they sometimes surreptitiously operating with more or less the goals?  How much categorization makes sense?

Wendy Behary has a book out, “Disarming the Narcissist,” that offers a general list of traits associated with narcissists.  At a conference in Washington where she presented this year she said that the original title she liked for the book, rejected by her publisher or editor was, “Narcissist: A Nightmare in Shining Armor.”
  
Behry says narcissists typically display ten of the following thirteen traits:

1.   Self-absorbed – Acts like everything is all about him or her
2.    Entitled – Makes the rules; breaks the rules
3.    Demeaning – Puts you down, bullyish
4.    Demanding – of whatever he or she wants
5.    Distrustful  – Suspicious of your motives when you’re being nice to him or her
6.    Perfectionistic – Rigidly high standards – his or her way or no way
7.    Snobbish – Believes he or she is superior to you and others; gets bored easily
8.    Approval seeking – Craves constant praise and recognition
9.    Unempathic- Uninterested in understanding your inner experience or unable to do so
10.    Unremorseful – Cannot offer a genuine apology
11.    Compulsive – Gets overly consumed with details and minutiae
12.    Addictive – Cannot let go of bad habits; uses them to self soothe
13.    Emotionally detached – Steers clear of feeling

In other words, they spend a lot of time trying to make themselves look good and seeking praise and recognition, but they are dangerous to others because they lack empathy and feelings, feel entitled and break rules while putting themselves first.  Unable to apologize, they tend to be adept at, and focused on, shifting blame, deflecting truth to find other reasons for problems they are a source of, rather than acknowledge any failures in themselves.

We came across what is suggested to be a particular classification of narcissist that intrigued us as library defenders and got us thinking.  We watched a video of Dr. Ramani Durvasula: The 4 Types of Narcissism You Need To Know.  Per the title of that video, Dr. Durvasula offers a four “primary type” category division that includes the “malignant narcissist” (mean, almost psychopathic, likely to lie, cheat or steal, perfect material to make great criminals) the “covert narcissist” (seemingly put upon, really victimy, but still grandiose and passive aggressive).
                   
The category that really caught our attention was the hard-to-spot“communal narcissist.”  The communal narcissist is always out at galas and benefits and wants attention for writing checks to charities.  They want to be seen as caring for those they are serving, while actually having a lack of empathy for those people they are “rescuing” and feel superior to.  They seek lots of “validation for all their good works” and are not about doing good quietly and unseen.

We found an article on this classification in Psychology Today: The Communal Narcissist: Another Wolf Wearing a Sheep Outfit, by Peg Streep, May 24, 2016.  The title of the article sounds a lot like Behary’s abandoned “Narcissist: A Nightmare in Shining Armor.”

The article is based on categories Dr. Craig Malkin used in his book “Rethinking Narcissism,” and says that the concept of the communal narcissist category “is a relative newcomer to the party; the designation is only a bit over a decade old.”

Malkin is quoted as explaining:

[T]hey regard themselves as especially nurturing, understanding, and empathic. They proudly announce how much they give to charity or how little they spend on themselves. . . . They believe themselves better than the rest of humanity, but cherish their status as givers, not takers.

But with grandiose notions that they are serving the world they lack “the ability to empathize” and are, according to the article “involved in community only as a validation of self.”   And finally, the article makes the point that they do not have the ability to self-recognize their traits.

If you are ahead of us on this then you already know why we were thinking about all of this.  We are thinking about it because it got us wondering about the library trustees and high level library administration officials who are consistently so self-congratulatory to themselves, and so self-assured about all the good things that they have done to transmogrify the libraries into something different.

There are also the related questions raised recently by Anand Giridharadas in his new book “Winners Take All- The Elite Charade of Changing the World,” and by others as to whether wealthy people dabbling in charities to "benefit" the rest of us want to help us or just help perpetuate a world and systems where they are always going to be on top, no matter if that’s problematic (i.e. asking them “to fix a system they are complicit in breaking”).  Plus, what the wealthy do is so frequently ensnared in the penchant for so-called “win-win solutions” where the wealthy who take the helm steering things are always looking for what’s in it (the “win”) for them.

Finally there is an overarching precept that Joseph Stiglitz, writing about Mr. Giridharadas’ book, offered by providing a quote from political scientist, Chiara Cordelli: “This right to speak for others, is simply illegitimate when exercised by a powerful citizen.”

Mr. Giridharadas doesn’t specifically mention the esoteric subject of the “communal narcissist” in his book, but in his book he does in fact, cite Ms. Cordelli’s words specifically in terms of good old-fashioned narcissism, saying that self-proclaimed “leaders” naming “themselves as the solvers of the most intractable social problems represents a worrisome way of erasing their role in causing them,” and the strangeness of placing “people with the most to lose from social reform” is:

marred by its own “narcissism.”  “It seems to me that these days everyone wants to change the world by themselves,” she said. “It’s about them; it’s about what they do.”  

Is that just a description of garden variety “narcissism,” or Ms. Cordelli zeroing in intuitively on the recently defined classification of “communal narcissist,” adopted by professional psychologists and counselors? 

(BTW: Another book covering similar territory with respect to the new “philanthropy” of the wealthy that we have also written about, David Callahan’s “The Givers: Wealth, Power and Philanthropy in a New Gilded Age” neglects the subject of such narcissism entirely.)

Communal narcissists?  Maybe knowing that they exist and being alert for their traits will enable them to be spotted amongst the higher up library administrators and boards of library trustees that are congratulating themselves while they sell off and shrink, and commercialize with private partnerships, New York public libraries while eliminating books and eliminating librarians and their influence.  Such individuals are surely there, harbored in their ranks.   There is also their close kin, the inappropriately self-designated, self-prioritizing “problem solvers” for the rest of us identified by Giridharadas whose “charity” can do more harm than good.  They can no doubt be found in those ranks too.

The interesting thing, however, is that, whether or not particular individuals manifest these psychological traits personally, when the forces aligning to dismantle libraries aggregate individuals endowing them with authority to pursue the goal of dismantling libraries, those groups will inevitably engage in tactics and behaviors most suitable to pursue and validate such dismantling.  Engaging in those tactics and behaviors they are likely to collectively display the traits of communal narcissism: They will focus in a self-congratulatory, unquestioning way on how wonderful what they are doing is; they will be disengaged from and unfeeling and unemphatic about the people they are supposed to be serving while displaying delusional beliefs that they not only do care, but are superior in this regard; they will seek congratulation and good press for what they are doing; they will see themselves as “givers,” not “takers”–

– Like other narcissists they will lack remorse for the harm they cause, steering clear of feelings, snobbishly keeping to themselves; they are apt to be bullyish or demeaning to others; and in an entitled fashion they will arrogantly want to make the rules and be in charge while breaking whatever rules they want, and they will avoid truth and accountability (wanting to be in charge of “fixing” what “they are complicit in breaking”).  . .

 .  And they will make a point of looking good, perfectly coifed and decked out when they go to their galas and benefits.

The Influence of Media Ownership On Content As Foreseen By Paddy Chayefsky’s Network (And How Fitting That The Pivotal “Voice-of-God” Scene Was Filmed In One of World’s Greatest Libraries)

Scene filmed in great world library: Peter Finch playing Howard Beale escorted by Robert Duvall as network executive Frank Hackett to meet Arthur Jensen, Chairman of the owning conglomerate, played by Ned Beatty.

It’s a scene filmed in one of the greatest libraries of the world (at least, it was then) and it is also important to talk about that scene in terms of some very important matters concerning libraries.  This is something we’ll come back to . . .

Watching Paddy Chayefsky’s masterful film “Network” again it is remarkable to think that it was written and made as long ago as it was.  It came out in 1976 Gol Darn it!  (Chayefsky’s “mad as hell” script would have used actual swear words.) The thing that makes it such a devilishly clever satire is the way that it moves in undetectable micro increments from the sane actual world we once thought we were living in to a shudderingly ghastly caricature of what the world might be in the process of becoming without ever letting you put your finger on exactly where the line was being crossed to move between the two.

It’s a testament to screenwriter Chayefsky’s perspicacious insights about society’s direction at the time that the film still works now at least as well as it did when it was first released. If anything, the seemingly increasing transgressive absurdities of life and shifting norms of 2018 might have us wondering whether the crossover point in the film where you can pinpoint that happening has actually moved: A reality TV star president who was elected in an election where the head of the CBS network commented with shameless accuracy about the unremitting, nonstop media coverage of Trump's campaign for office: “It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS.”
                    
Rewatching “Network” might also reveal another startling fact to people who have been engaged in trying to save New York’s public libraries recently: A pivotal scene in the film [Spoiler Alert!] occurs in the 42nd Street Central Reference Library.  It was filmed in the Trustees opulent meeting room and on the grand Carrère & Hastings designed central staircase leading up to the room.  There is even a brief glimpse into the adjacent office of the NYPL president.

Scenes from "Network" filmed in the NYPL's trustees room (including a glimpse of the NYPL president's office) and then, current day, the NYPL trustees meeting in the room.  Also, the Thomas Jefferson inscription over the fireplace and the dedication of the building to serve the public.

The scene is where the Howard Beale character, the crazed former news anchor played by Peter Finch in the role for which he posthumously won best actor, hears the voice of God.  He undergoes a conversion as a result that sets up the film’s final denouement.  Beale doesn’t hear actual voice of God; he hears the voice of capitalism pretending to be God and bring him enlightenment that allows him to preach its gospel.  What he actually hears is the voice of Arthur Jensen (played by Ned Beatty) the Chairman of the global conglomerate that has acquired the network on which Beale is now a rating’s success as the “mad prophet of the airwaves.”

“Enlightened,” Beale about-faces from his populist message to preach the new capital establishment-praising dogma and his ratings plunge, but Chairman Jensen, personally a fan of this new skew to Beale’s script won’t allow Beale’s show to be cancelled.  This plot pivot deftly allows Chayefsky a jump that skewers the effects of corporate ownership on media content from two directions: First, as the movie had done up to that point, it skewered the pursuit of corporate profit-at-any-social-cost as seen in the chase of ratings down the swirling drain of lowest common denominator bad taste, and then it flips to skewer the penchant for wealth and corporate capitalism to want to narcissistically bask in laudatory self compliment even if delivery of that package is insincerely just purchased and paid for.

For starker relief, this satiric critique is presented against the backdrop of a mythically imagined legacy of great newsmen, sober gentlemen in the mold of Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite and Eric Sevareid, who were sagaciously grounded in the notion that there is a sacred obligation to transmit the news with fidelity.  Not that the real state of affairs things at CBS News and elsewhere in the news media influencing our country were historically ever exactly what they seemed when the mythos of that veneer was being polished.  Nevertheless, in the early scenes of the film, the pitch perfect performances of William Holden playing Max Schumacher and Peter Finch playing Beale (before his madness flowers) do evoke the gravitas of such men that in a previous time it felt were so reassuring and reliable to have at the helm of the Fourth Estate looking out for our interests as if they were obligated by a public trust.

 -   In case anyone has forgotten, the nation’s broadcasting airwaves are supposed to be a public trust, actually a public commons owned by the American public itself, not the corporations who now control it and treat it as their private property to be bought, sold and used any way they will. Additionally, the model for ownership and tending of the airwaves didn’t have to be one where this precious asset was handed off to profit making corporations controlling virtually everything and wanting to direct all your attention to advertising.  There were other possible non-profit models that could have taken hold.  (Read Tim Wu’s books the “The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires” and the “The Attention Merchants: The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads.”)

We remember Michael Moore with his characteristic glee explaining what he saw to be the Achilles heel of capitalism in his ability to get his message out: So long as I am making a profit for them, they don’t pay attention to what I say. .  And so, he said, he could keep saying it.  (If you find a link for this send it to us please.)  That bravado is somewhat contradicted by what almost happened to Moore and his anti-George W. Bush message when his publisher wanted to pulp unpublished his book “Stupid White Men: ...And Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation!”  The publisher viewed its point of view as unsuitable for the post 9/11 era.  The book became a best seller and thus made a huge profit for his publisher, but had to be rescued by brave librarians focusing on principles quite apart from the pursuit of profit who were the only reason it wound up being published.
 
The ability to get a message out and to get out content that has trenchant integrity is an escalating concern in our world given the increasing conglomeration of the media giants and the dwindling number of owners particularly when you consider questions about the way such conglomerates engaged in all sorts of other businesses may see things.  For instance, AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner is regarded as a first significant beachhead for a wave of further consolidations of media company ownership.  It generated an article in the New York Times about the possible fate HBO’s future production culture and content:

Media analysts and tech-industry prognosticators look at AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner and wonder about the future of an industry in flux. Hollywood looks at the deal and wonders what’s going to happen to HBO.

See: New York Times- Will AT&T Be Able to Handle HBO? By John Koblin, June 14, 2018.
       
In the article, “Richard Plepler, the smooth-talking, perpetually tanned chief executive of HBO” bravely envisioned that HBO would escape ownership directed change because such an escape was needed for HBO to succeed at what it does, referring to “Mr. Plepler’s view that HBO needs to be left alone in order to thrive.”  More specifically:

“You have to have a Chinese wall between the creative process and everything else,” Mr. Plepler told The New York Times shortly after the deal was announced in 2016. He added that he would be “very surprised” if AT&T did not embrace that.

Of course, the movie “Network” is very much about so-called “Chinese walls,” or the actual lack thereof when it comes to media ownership, first when the business oriented corporate types want to take over network’s news division to make it more of an infotainment ratings success and then later when Chairman Arthur Jensen wants his voice-of-God capitalism gospel preached to the world.  In real life, the corporate types at Networks have leaned hard on the news divisions to suppress news.  Two of the movie docudramas about journalism, “The Insider” (about trying to broadcast a whistle-blower’s revelations about tobacco company lies) and “Truth” (about reporting events leading up to the firing of CBS news anchor Dan Rather and his “60 Minutes” producer Mary Mapes) concern what were actually real life events. . . . 

“Truth” focuses on altercations between Rather, Mapes and their team and the corporate types at CBS in the lead up to their forced departure from the CBS network, but they had altercations before that.   Just recently on Democracy Now, legendary reporter Sy Hersh described how sitting on “photographs of torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib” for weeks the corporate people running the CBS network didn’t want Rather and Mapes to run the news story that was unflattering to the government:

They had had it for two weeks. [And they didn’t run it.]  But, you know, the people doing it, the reporters, Dan Rather and Mary Mapes, the producers, wanted to. But the suits stopped them.

It took a deal to forcing publication with the story coming out simultaneous elsewhere.  Said Hersh of the subsequent Rather and Mapes firings: “It’s too bad. It’s not good to be good at your job in network television. That’s my theory.”

By contrast, Mr. Plepler, head of HBO thinks that at HBO the talent of being good at your job is integral to its success:

“It’s very much part of the DNA of HBO: Talent is sacred,” Mr. Plepler said after the AT&T deal was announced. “They bring the magic into our company. Writers, producers, actors. It’s their gifts that make HBO HBO. It’s pretty clear to anybody who looks at our company from afar — and, in AT&T’s case, more closely — we are a talent-centric place.”

In what could be construed as a plea to his possible future boss, he added: “I can’t imagine, with everything that Randall made clear to us, why would you ever change a winning game? I don’t think they have any intention of doing so.”

(Not mentioned in the article is that a fair amount of HBO's content is also political.)

But is it ever just so simple as declaring an expectation that the ownership of our media will stay on the other side of a “Chinese Wall” and won’t interfere?  Gothamist publisher Jake Dobkin was a panelist at a June 18, 2018 Brooklyn Historical Society discussion about local news in New York City: “RIP Local News?”  In his opening remarks Dobkin spoke about what happened with a planned merger of  DNAInfo and Gothamist, two local news web outlets that, with an acquisition of the Gothamist were both under the ownership of billionaire Joe Rickets. Dobkin explained that the shutdown of both sites by Ricketts, instead of a merger, that occurred when the employees unionized, was unanticipated because it was unanticipated that the employees would unionize.  Dobkin made it seem unfortunate, almost sad that they did unionize.  Mr. Ricketts, a Trump-supporting conservative Republican owner, has a deep antipathy towards unions.  The shutdown was especially scary when it occurred because it raised the possibility all the past reporting on the sites was about to vanish permanently.  In fact, for a while it seemed to; and it could have.

Explaining the misfortune of the shutdowns, Dobkin told the Brooklyn Historical Society that the “owner. .  had never involved himself in the politics of the site.”  Afterwards, noting his statement about Mr. Ricketts non-involvement with the “politics of the site,” we asked Dobkin about reports that even before the unionization occurred, news and information on the acquired site written about Mr. Rickets, was eliminated or rewritten.  Mr. Dobkin dismissed the importance of the reports saying that it was only a few articles and that he had done it with the hope that people would have jobs and be able to feed their families.  In other words, an owner doesn’t even have to ask before editors try to intuit what they may need to do to keep their jobs and livelihoods afloat.

Are you feeling glutted by monopolist mergers?  This week tech columnist Brian X. Chen wrote a column in the New Times, “With Latest Acquisitions, Amazon Continues Its Quest for World Domination,” asking “Does anyone else feel that Amazon is slowly taking over the world?”

Chen noted how Amazon was giving discounts on groceries at Whole Foods to those who became Amazon Prime members, how Amazon had also gained, through its acquisition of PillPack, a license to start shipping pharmaceutical prescriptions in all 50 states, and how it was planning to start up its own delivery services, an “army,” to compete with FedEx, United Parcel Service and the United States Postal Service.  Amazon and its owner Jeff Bezos are also part of media conglomerate universe.  Bezos owns The Washington Post, the most important newspaper in the nation’s capital.  Amazon started by selling books, led people into digital books, ‘kindling” there interest, and sells a vast amount of all other content at its site.  It is now making films while often being a sole source for video streaming much of the historical/vintage content you would once find in the video stores that have gone out of business around the country.

We are told that Mr. Bezos doesn’t want to “control the editorial product” at the Washington Post, that the only micro-management stuff at the paper with which he likes to get weightily involved is “on wonky issues like web-page load time and ease of subscription sign-ups.”  We are even told that the Washington Post wrote a lengthy 2017 article “suggesting that Amazon could become a dangerous monopoly” that Mr. Bezos did not react to. (Gee, Amazon really could?- That might happen in the future?)

There is a certain extreme irony when it comes to writing denials that Mr. Bezos as Washington Post owner will exercise any influence over editorial content at the Post at the very same time that theaters were playing Spielberg’s Oscar-contending “The Post” dramatically lauding the courage of the central character, Katherine Graham, former Washington Post owner, Mr. Bezos’ predecessor, in deciding what content the newspaper would and would not publish when it was presented with the Pentagon Papers. If you want to see the film now, you can get it through Amazon.

Furthermore, one has to figure that the Washington Post almost has to print at least one article about Amazon’s monopolistic tendencies and exploits to help inoculate itself against criticism that such ownership is having exactly the kind of censorship effect.  The test is not whether the Post writes about monopoly and Amazon, but whether any of the legislators in Washington that the Post regularly covers carefully takes up that concern as a cause.  They haven’t.  Lastly, there is also a lot more to criticize about Amazon concerning the immense amount of data it is collecting on everybody in the country and its ties with the CIA and U.S. military.                         

Both these pieces about media monopolies ran in the same edition of the New York Times this week.

Not feeling sufficiently glutted by these mergers yet?  The same day that Brian X. Chen wondered in his Times column whether people noticed that Amazon was taking over the world, the Times ran an editorial noting troublingly that the Disney-Fox merger sailed through exceptionally fast: Opinion- The Disney-Fox Deal Sails Through, a Bit Too Easily, by The Editorial Board, July 1, 2018.  Said the Times:

Government officials appear unconcerned that the combined Disney-Fox will account for about half of the box office revenue nationally this year and about 30 percent of scripted TV programming, according to the Writers Guild of America West, a Hollywood labor union.

    * * * *

 . .  antitrust regulators and judges are usually . . . dubious of horizontal deals like Disney-Fox. In these cases, it’s much easier to show that the combined company would have the power to raise prices and limit choices. In the movie business, for example, Disney already wields considerable clout — its studios accounted for more than a third of box office sales in the first five months of the year. The additional 15 percent share of box office sales that the company will gain through this deal no doubt will increase Disney’s clout when it negotiates with movie-theater chains. For instance, the company might be able to demand top billing for its movies and a bigger share of revenue than smaller studios get. According to a handful of theater owners who talked to The Wall Street Journal last year, Disney has already engaged in such tactics, forcing them to accept more onerous terms if they wanted to show its blockbuster “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.”

As for ownership and influence?  The Times noted speculation about whether politics came into play in the Trump administration’s rushed approval.  It noted something to be concerned about Trump-supporting Rupert Murdoch and his family: 

While Disney will not acquire Fox News or the Fox network and stations as part of this deal, the acquisition will make the Murdoch family the largest individual shareholders in Disney, increasing their wealth by billions of dollars.

And the gospel that Murdoch and family will want preached?

Now to conclude with an observation we simply must make: Isn’t it bizarrely appropriate that Paddy Chayefsky’s pivotal voice-of-God scene was filmed in the trustees meeting room one of the world’s greatest libraries with that trustees room masquerading as a corporate board room? . . .

As our New York City libraries are being plundered and shut down, their books eliminated, people are, perforce, and quite likely even by plan, being pushed out to the corporately owned media for their alternatives.  The decisions that shut down and plunder our libraries and banish their books while pushing people more and more into the arms and the technology of the new media empires are being made by boards of trustees that look a lot like multiplied versions of the Arthur Jensen character that Chayefsky’s scripting (and the location scout) put into that library trustees room.  The motivations and rationalizations of these new library trustees are increasingly corporate and free market enterprise-deifying in the same way.

As the public is pushed out and away from the traditional resources of public, nonprofit libraries what will we get instead?: The latest glitz that profit-minded corporations are pushing?  Or will we get their stories about how splendid monopolistic capitalism is?

Unfortunately, whatever we get and will have to live with is real.  It’s not satire.

WHO Is Selling Our Libraries?

The plans to sell our libraries were announced under the Mayor Michael Bloomberg's administration and it appears that they go back to at least 2005 and probably at least 2004.  Prior to the Bloomberg administration, NYC libraries were being expanded significantly under the Giuliani administration.  During the 2013 mayoral race, candidate Bill de Blasio said that the library sales should be halted, but in short order Mr. de Blasio was taking money from real estate developers "behind the curtain  . .very anxious to get their hands on these valuable properties.”

Once in office, Mayor Bill de Blasio continued with the library sales he decried as a candidate, although, to give the devil his due, de Blasio did not proceed with the full-blown NYPL Central Library Plan.  While the Mid-Manhattan library is now being subjected to a consolidating shrinkage it is no longer being sold straight out, but, under Mayor de Blasio we are still selling SIBL the city's biggest science library.  We are also still exiling research books off premises from where they were once readily and quickly retrievable at the 42nd Street Library.


There are other elected officials that are avidly taking the lead pushing these city library sales.  Foremost among them is city council member Brad Lander.  Also clearly conspicuous in his enthusiastic and unrelenting support for these plans is Jimmy Van Bramer head of the City Council Cultural Committee of which the city council's library subcommittee is a sub-component he domainates in leading.  .  .

 . .  Each particular local city council member must also be held responsible for what happens to the libraries in their districts, but revelations are that many of them, like Councilman Stephen Levin (Brooklyn Heights and Williamsburg libraries), Ydanis Rodriguez (Inwood Library) and Carlos Manchacca (Sunset Park Library), were brought on board behind the scenes in advance to help push these library deals through without regard to what their community constituents want.

New Yorkers are, of course, more and more accustomed to local New York City officials selling out the public interest to favor the real estate industry, but they will still often ask, rather incredulously, whether the people running the libraries and setting policy are opposing these library sales expecting that to be their duty.  The answer is that they are not.  The sale and shrinkage of the city libraries is happening only because top library administration officials and the boards of the three library systems are supporting these sales and working to advance them.

Back in the 1970s when the real estate industry wanted to get hold of Brooklyn's Pacific Street Library the head of the Brooklyn Public Library joined the community in fighting to defeat them, but now. . .

Stephen A. Schwarzman, a trustee on the board of the NYPL and the head of the Blackstone Group, which as just one of the arms of its business is the world's largest real estate investment company (including buildings close by on Bryant Park), transferred $100 million to the NYPL based on his understanding that the consolidating shrinkage of the Central Library Plan was to proceed.  Mr. Schwarzman is now spearheading Trump administration ambitions to privatize many more of the nation's public assets in deals where it is likely private insiders will benefit the way that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner did when the Donnell Library was sold (with whom he is now doing many, many troublesome deals.)

Similarly, the board of trustees of the Brooklyn Public Library is rife with people who crop up in connection with promoting other real estate development (including working to maximize development in Brooklyn Bridge Park), political operatives, Goldman Sachs people, a long list of people whose agenda would seem to be adverse to the patrons and users of the libraries.  You have situations such as David Offensend being in place as Chief Operating Officer at the NYPL implementing the Donnell Library sale and the Central Library Plan sales at the same time that his wife, Janet Offensend, was concocting a fate for the Brooklyn Heights Library based on replication of the Donnell deal. There is much to say about the way that boards like these that should have non-profit goals are straying from their missions.  It is expected that the recent recomposition of the Queens Library board will have that board following suit with the NYPL and BPL.

There are also other outside groups that, while they talk about how they believe in the importance of libraries, actually work to promote and support these sales and shrinkages.  For instance, the Center for an Urban Future supported the Donnell Library sale and shrinkage and the Central Library Plan, as did a group named Urban Librarians Unite, which was formed in 2008 just as the library administration and city officials were unveiling and gearing up promotion for their library real estate plans.  Both of these groups (like library-shrinking Spaceworks) get significant funding from The Revson Foundation which has been involved in promoting libraries as real estate deals from the beginning. The Revson Foundation can be connected to Bloomberg Daniel Doctoroff development people formerly on the BPL board like Sharon Greenberger and to the Robin Hood Foundation that is taking the lead in the Inwood Library sale.

Unexpected wild cards also crop up: The Brooklyn Heights Association that once fought to enlarge the central downtown Brooklyn Heights Library, later betrayed the community to instead advocate for the library's sale and shrinkage when, behind the scenes, a number of its board members were connected with Saint Ann's, a private school that was benefitting terrifically from its participation in the real estate deal.  (The Heights Association became a strange empty doughnut hole in the list of surrounding neighborhood associations signing our letter of support to opposing such library sales.-   For cover the BHA hid behind the skirts of a recently taken over and shrunken Friends of the Brooklyn Heights Library.)  The Fifth Avenue Committee, a group that holds itself out as acting in the community interest and has some history of doing so has gone out of its way to vociferously support  library sales and shrinkage while its deep involvement benefitting from such development necessitated recusal of its head, Michelle de la Uz, on the City Planing Commission.

Another category of public officials who can be held responsible for the library sales are those who have not done enough to stand up to the real estate industry to oppose them.  The borough presidents have considerable power to oppose these deals.  Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams who at one point showed courage opposing the destruction of the Brooklyn Heights Library, ultimately reversed, surrendering his support for that and the Sunset Park Library sale.  Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer has been far more complicit in supporting the destruction of SIBL, and the consolidating shrinkage of the Midtown Campus Plan plus the sale of the Inwood Library.  The borough presidents also have representatives on the City Planning Commission, which although loaded with conflicts that bias it towards dispensing favor to the real estate community, must do things like weigh in on most city library sales.

The current NYC Comptroller Scott Stringer wrote a strong letter critical of the BPL's sale and shrinkage of its second biggest biggest library in Brooklyn with the current NYC Public Advocate Tish James following suit to write similarly, and as a candidate for office candidate James campaigned against such shrinkages . . . Nevertheless, the list of public officials who have not done enough to exercise their formidable powers must notably include those two top elected officials as well as investigators and law enforcement officials such as the New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman who, aside from investigating and prosecuting transgressions of New York State Law is also, by state law, specifically assigned the responsibility for ensuring that the charities like those running the libraries properly perform the missions.  Had Mr. Schneiderman investigated the Donnell Library sale as we asked he might have prophylactically side-lined the likes of Stephen A. Schwarzman and Jared Kushner, key players in Donald Trump's campaign for president and now in his administration.

There are also reasons to expect that state and federal officials could be doing more to fend off the library destructions, although in this regard it should be considered that Stephen Schwarzman and his Blackstone Group make major contributions to Senator Schumer (making Schumer in 2014 the #1 Blackstone-supported politician in New York State and the #4 Blackstone supported politician nationwide) and Senator Schumer's wife, Iris Weinshall, having replaced David Offensend as Chief Operating Officer at the NYPL, is now the one in charge of such things as selling SIBL, the consolidating shrinkage of the Midtown Campus Plan, and adding the Inwood Library to the list of libraries targeted for sale (after she engaged in similar work with respect to real estate assets of CUNY).

The sale of our libraries bleeds into our national politics in other ways with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and Schwarzman being involved in the sale of Donnell while Hillary Clinton's national campaign headquarters were located at a building which was for real estate development purposes was at the corner of Tillary and Clinton part of the same real estate parcel as Brooklyn's second biggest library being sold, with her landlord Forest City Ratner participating in that deal offensively replicating the shrink-and-sink Donnell sale.

For complete information go back to our Citizens Defending Libraries Main Page (or to read through all the content of our Main Page in LONG FORM CLICK)

BPL Proposing To Sell Crown Heights Library In Another Consolidating Shrinkage Apparently, Again To Make The Real Estate Industry Happy

 This page has and will be updated as necessary.

Likely in response to our surfacing the information, the BPL will present information to Brooklyn Community Board 8 on Thursday night concerning the move of the Brower Park Library (in Crown Heights) into the recently renovated Children's Museum where we understand there isn't truly enough room for it.

Presentation on moving the Brower Park Library to Children's Museum to CB8
Thursday, February 16, 7:00pm - 8:30pm
Brooklyn Community Board 8 meeting
151 Rochester Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11213
(Take the 3, 4 or A train)

This is now covered in a new DNAInfo article (Patch contacted us to track down the information after we posted what we knew, and then went to the BPL):

Brower Park Library to Move into Brooklyn Children's Museum
By Rachel Holliday Smith | February 14, 2017
Crown Heights, Prospect Heights & Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Education, Real Estate

Comparison of Brower Park Library's already far too short hours (it still has been converted to 7-day serve as advocated) with Children's Museum's even shorter hours.-  Also, information about space.  A proper library would commandeer 20% of the museum's 2008 expansion of space.

The DNAInfo article doesn't say how many square feet the "replacement library" will be but says it will be paid for with public funds (if they can get the money from BdB and the City Council) and will cost $3 million.  That very small price tag indicates a very small amount of library space or a very minimal amount of renovation work to create the space.  The DNA article does not say how small the replacement library will be.  (It is recommended that libraries be at least 10,000 square feet or more.)

The DNAInfo article does not indicate who will benefit in real estate terms by the library vacating the existing site.  The BPL had several years ago taken in development proposals for the site.  The site wasn't then owned by the BPL, but in such situations the BPL has been acquiring sites via eminent domain.  It is possible that an owner of the site will therefore benefit.  On the other hand, will the unidentified developer who was making proposals be involved?  Might it be the Fifth Avenue Committee stirring the library development pot again?

The Children's Museum is open  6 days a week, closed Mondays, for total of 43 hours.  (See chart above.)  The Brower Park Library, with hours already too short, is open 6 days a week, closed Sundays, for total of 48 hours.  The goal is for it and all city libraries to be open seven days a week.

There is no charge to use the library.  The Children's Museum has an $11.00 PER PERSON General admission to the museum for those over the age of 11 months (with “Pay as You Wish” Hours 2PM through 6PM sponsored by Investors Bank & Astoria Bank).

The Children’s Museum doubled its size with a 2008 $46 million expansion that added about 51,000 square feet.  The recommended minimum size for a NYC neighborhood branch library is 10,000 square feet (one fifth of the 2008 Children’s Museum publicly paid for $46 million expansion).  The BPL is planning to spend a paltry $3 million on the “replacement Brower Park library,” a fraction of what a 10,000 square foot library should cost.

For what we posted before that first got this information out, see below:

* * * * 

We are informed that the BPL plans to sell the Crown Heights Library.  The plan, another in an ever growing list of sales that turn libraries into real estate deals, is apparently another consolidating shrinkage to make the people in the real estate industry happy.

There has been no formal announcement of the sale plans so nothing can be verified against the public record.  The information given us was that the Crown Heights Library is being sold.  However, the Brower Park Library is another library considered to be in the neighborhood of “Crown Heights.”  The Brower Park Library is also very close to the Children’s Museum so there is a possibility that the correct information is that the Brower Park Library, a library in Crown Heights, is being sold for this transaction.  There are reasons why that should more likely be the case.

The proposal, as described to us, is for a consolidating shrinkage of space where the library will be moved into the Children’s Museum.

Crown Heights Library

Street view of Crown Heights Library

Above and below: BPL historical photos of Crown Heights Library

We were given to understand from the information we received that the 11,119 square foot Crown Heights Library, is to be sold to vacate its current site at 560 New York Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11225 and then will be moved over a mile (close to a half hour walk) and crammed into the Children’s Museum 145 Brooklyn Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11213 where there isn’t really room for it.

At 11,119 square feet the Crown Heights Library, built in 1958 isn’t one of the BPL’s smallest (like 7,500 square feet) libraries, but it isn’t exactly huge and is just barely bigger than the smallest libraries.  It is just big enough to be what is a recommended minimum size for a New York City library (10,000 square feet).  It is a single floor library so no space is sacrificed to stairs or elevators.  It has a 1,594 square foot meeting room with reasonable capacity of 69 people.  It also has conference room space: 1,594 square feet that will accommodate 16 people.  The current Crown Heights Library is eminently expandable.  At its present location the library is very convenient to the 2 and 5 on the IRT line.

Although the Crown Heights Library is only one floor, the site it occupies is currently zoned R6 (Zoning Map:17b) permitting more development rights to be used by whomever takes the site over.  For example, across the street on the other side of New York Ave (between Maple Street and Lincoln Road) there is a six-story elevator apartment building.

Library Locations

Right now the Crown Heights Library is about equidistant from five other libraries, the Rugby Library, the Flatbush Library, the central destination Grand Army Plaza Library, the Brower Park Library, and the Eastern Parkway Library.  A library in the Children’s Museum would be right by the location of the Brower Park Library, 725 St Marks Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11216.  The Brower Park Library has also definitely been eyed by the BPL, for some time now, for conversion into a real estate deal.

Brower Park Library

Brower Park Library

The Brower Park Library, built in 1963, is one of the system’s teeniest libraries, only 6,285 gross square feet.  Although it is larger than the 5,000 square feet BPL officials recently tried to shrink the Red Hook Library down to, it ought to eventually be larger.  Its 443 square foot meeting room space has the capacity for only about 13 to 20 people.

Although just one-story the library zoning lot is R6 (Zoning Map:17a).  The library is on a street where it is surrounded by taller buildings.

The Children’s Museum

The Children’s Museum, offering three floors of interactive exhibits, is currently 102,000 square feet, the result of a $46 million expansion (for which the city contributed $45 million) that was needed to double the museum’s size in 2008.  It is our information that there is not truly sufficient space for the museum to now house the library as proposed.

Trustees Congratulating Each Other On Deal

Reportedly the BPL and Children’s Museum trustees are complimenting each other on their deal.  Should they be?  And, if so, why?  The kind of composition at the Children’s Museum overlaps somewhat with the kind of trustees on the board of the Brooklyn Public Library which is chock full of real estate people, investment banker types (lots of Goldman), political operatives and other people with interest and agenda adverse to, or far from smoothly compatible with, the interests of libraries.

The board of the Children’s Museum has its investment bankers and venture capitalists, William D. Rifkin, Corey Baylor, Andrew Weissman, (an investment banker from Goldman of course, Stefan Duffner) and its people with real estate interests and connections. Tanya Levy-Odom now at Time Inc. for NYC Investor Relations used to be in investment banking.  George J. Sampas at the Sullivan & Cromwell law firm is co-head of its Private Equity Group using his knowledge of various takeover regimes. Janno Lieber is connected to all that World Trade Center stuff by heading the division in charge of it Larry Silverstein’s organization. Lawrence Kwon’s position at Moelis & Company, Investment Banking connects him through familial relationship to Ron Moelis one of the most politically connected developers in the city.  One of the board members, Adam Hess, is a partner at TerraCRG Commercial Realty Group, which focuses particularly on development in Brownstone Brooklyn neighborhoods, including Crown Heights and Prospect Lefferts Garden.  Paul Gangsei is a real estate lawyer specializing in real estate and development transactions now at Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP. (that has AT&T and SONY as big clients). There’s Chris Havens, an authority on New York commercial real estate leasing, financing, deals and culture who writes about it for the Commercial Observer, owned by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner (connected to the Donnell Library sale).  Yes there are important BPL board connections with the Brooklyn Navy Yard.  Similarly, Children’s Museum board members Jocelynne Rainey is Chief Administrative Officer, EVP at Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corporation.  With the BPL board you see politically involved Con Edison people all over the place.  At the Children’s Museum from Con Ed there is Milovan Blair. Brian Wornow is involved with mortgage lending and real estate market risk.  Niles D. Stewart is another banker working in the lending area.  Annik Wolf works for a conduit that seeks encourage investor funding.  Cindy McLaughlin works for “a tech company that makes never-before-been-organized property data and analysis beautifully visible to and usable by the similarly opaque real estate industry. Envelope was cofounded by world-renowned SHoP Architects and the hugely-respected Director of MIT's Civic Data Design Lab, whose work is on view in MoMA.”

Some people are just in helper businesses like PR.  Christina Bertinelli is a communications industry brand reputation expert working for Lumentus, a communications consulting firm that helps its clients manage their brands, protect their reputations and improve their perceptions across target and stakeholder audiences.

And is this a fascinating coincidence?:  The BPL board had on it, as a trustee, Janet Offensend, the wife of that library seller extraordinaire, David Offensend, who as Chief Operating Officer of the NYPL was the master overseer initiating the NYPL library sell offs like Donnell, SIBL, Mid-Manhattan.  David Offensend, who came to the NYPL from Evercore, was himself on the board at the Children's Museum!   

* * * *

This is, of course, another library being sold off as part of Mayor de Blasio’s (phone: 212-788-3000) continuation of Bloomberg’s privatizing reduction of the public real and public ownership.

The other elected officials involved and responsible in the case of this particular Brooklyn library sell-off are:

Council Member (For the current location of the Crown Heights Library)
Mathieu Eugene (D)
123 Linden Blvd.
Brooklyn, NY 11226
phone: 718-287-8762
fax: 718-287-8917
email: meugene@council.nyc.gov
website: http://council.nyc.gov/district-40

Council Member (For the location of the Children’s Museum and the Brower Park Library)
Robert Cornegy (D)
1360 Fulton Street
Ste. 500
Brooklyn, NY 11216
phone: 212-788-7354
fax: 212-788-8951
email: Rcornegy@council.nyc.gov
website: http://council.nyc.gov/district-36/

Brooklyn Borough President
Eric Adams
209 Joralemon St.
Brooklyn, NY 11201
phone: 718-802-3700
fax: 718-802-3522
email: askeric@brooklynbp.nyc.gov
website: http://www.brooklyn-usa.org/

Brooklyn Community Board 9 (for the current location of the Crown Heights Library)
Chairperson- Demetrius Lawrence (BPL Trustee Michael Liburd has been working on the CB9 board pushing plans that support development)
890 Nostrand Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11225
phone: 718-778-9279
email: bk09@cb.nyc.gov
website: http://www.communitybrd9bklyn.org/

Brooklyn Community Board 8 (for the current location of the Children’s Museum and Brower Park Library)
Chairperson- Nizjoni Granville
1291 St. Marks Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11213
phone: 718-467-5574
email: info@brooklyncb8.org
website: http://www.brooklyncb8.org/


NYC Comptroller (Investigates and audits waste fraud and abuse including NYC libraries)
Scott M. Stringer (D)
The David N. Dinkins Manhattan Municipal Building, One Centre St.
5th Floor
New York, NY 10007
phone: 212-669-3916
fax: 212-669-2707
email: action@comptroller.nyc.gov
website: http://comptroller.nyc.gov/

NYC Public Advocate (charged with looking out for the public interest)
Letitia James (D, WF)
The David N. Dinkins Manhattan Municipal Building, One Centre St.
15th Floor
New York, NY 10007
phone: 212-669-7200
fax: 212-669-4701
email: GetHelp@pubadvocate.nyc.gov
website: http://pubadvocate.nyc.gov/

Brooklyn District Attorney (for criminal investigation purposes)
Kenneth P. Thompson (D)
350 Jay St.
Brooklyn, NY 11201
phone: 718-250-2001
fax: 718-250-2210
email: da@brooklynda.org
website: http://www.brooklynda.org/

NYS Attorney General (for criminal investigation purposes and oversee charities including the BPL and Children’s Museum)
Eric T. Schneiderman (D, WF, I)
120 Broadway
New York, NY 10271
phone: 212-416-8000
fax: 212-416-8139
email: eric.schneiderman@ag.ny.gov
website: http://www.ag.ny.gov/

Assemblymember
Diana C. Richardson (WF)
NYS State Assembly District 43
1216 Union Street
Brooklyn, NY 11225
phone: 718-771-3105
fax: 718-771-3276
email: district43@nyassembly.gov
website: http://assembly.state.ny.us/mem/?ad=043

State Senator (for the current site of the Crown Heights Library)
Jesse Hamilton (D)
NYS State Senate District 20
1669 Bedford Avenue
Second Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11225
phone: (718) 284-4700
fax: (718) 282-3585
email: hamilton@nysenate.gov
website: http://www.nysenate.gov/senators/jesse-hamilton

State Senator (for the site of the Children’s Museum and Brower Park Library)
 NYS State Senate District 25
Velmanette Montgomery (D)
30 Third Avenue
Room 207
Brooklyn, NY 11217
phone: (718) 643-6140
fax: (718) 237-4137
email: montgome@nysenate.gov
website: http://www.nysenate.gov/senators/velmanette-montgomery

NYS Comptroller (oversees authorities and adequacy of local audits such as by the NYC Comptroller)
Thomas P. DiNapoli (D)
59 Maiden Lane
31st Floor
New York, NY 10038
phone: 212-383-1600
fax: 212-383-4468
email: contactus@osc.state.ny.us
website: http://www.osc.state.ny.us/index.htm

Mayor de Blasio Makes His First Three Trustee Appointments To The Board of Brooklyn Public Library

At the Tuesday, September 29, 2015 Brooklyn Public Library Trustees meeting it was announced that Mayor Bill de Blasio had made his first three appointments of trustees to the board of the Brooklyn Public Library.  Two of the appointments were reportedly finalized the day before the meeting.

This information is not yet up on the Brooklyn Public Library's website, nor does there appear to be any release of this information from the Mayor's office yet.

Two of the new trustees are Rachel Lauter and Patrick Train Gutiérrez.  The third, with only her first name referred to in the information given at the Tuesday, appears likely to be Roseann Paradiso Fodera.*

(*  As of the BPL finally posting an update to its trustee list sometime before December 28, 2015, it is confirmed that Ms. Fodera was correctly identified here as this new trustee.  At the December 15, 2015 BPL trustees meeting- where several other revelations were made- the appointment of another new trustee, Blake Walters Foote, also, very relevantly, on the board of the Center for an Urban Future was announced but is not yet posted as of December 28, 2015.)

Here is more information.

Ex-officio trustee Rachel Lauter

One trustee appointed is the Mayor's new ex-officio appointee.  De Blasio has appointed his new appointments secretary (a powerful and key administration position) Rachel Lauter, who has served as appointments secretary for de Blasio since this spring.  Here is more information about her from the April press release announcing her appointment.

Mayor de Blasio Names Rachel Lauter as Director of The Mayor's Office of Appointments

April 7, 2015

NEW YORK - Mayor Bill de Blasio today named Rachel Lauter as the Director of the Mayor's Office of Appointments. Lauter previously served in the Mayor's Office as Counsel for City Legislative Affairs.

"Rachel brings years of experience in public service and a record of success in this administration. She understands firsthand our commitment to building an administration that boasts diversity and talent. She is an excellent choice to help us promote equity, opportunity and excellence in City government," said Mayor Bill de Blasio.

The Mayor's Office of Appointments serves a critical role by recruiting top talent for over 700 discretionary appointment positions at City agencies, mayoral corporations, and commissions. The Office of Appointments focuses on senior-level appointments that represent substantial policy-making and decision-making authority within City government, such as Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner and Associate Commissioner. Additionally, the Office develops recommendations for mayoral board appointments for over 200 city boards and commissions, which execute important decisions in connection with city infrastructure, culture and community priorities.

About Rachel Lauter:

Rachel Lauter previously served as Counsel for City Legislative Affairs. She joined the Mayor's Office in the first month of the de Blasio Administration as an attorney in the Office of Appointments. Prior to joining the de Blasio administration, she served as Assistant Counsel to Governor Andrew Cuomo and clerked for the Honorable Paul G. Gardephe in the Southern District of New York. Lauter is co-founder of the New Kings Democrats, a local Brooklyn-based political club. She began her career in New York City government as a New York City Urban Fellow. She is a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law School, where she served as President of the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, the oldest student-run legal services provider in the country.

Patrick Train Gutiérrez

The next new de Blasio appointee, a regular mayoral appointment, is Patrick Train Gutiérrez who managed to make the September 29th meeting.  Patrick Train Gutiérrez (or Patrick Alan Train-Gutiérrez) is a lawyer who does intellectual property and other litigation at Kaplan Landau LLP, and whose wife (Magda Jimenez Train), also a lawyer is former legal partner and long-time friend (along with her husband of current BPL Chairman Nicholas Gravante (Boise Shiller and Flexner).  She is now working in-house at Barclays as Director, Litigation, Investigations and Enforcement.  Gravante told the BPL trustees that he hoped that Magda's contacts at Barclays (a legally troubled bank) would serve the BPL well.

Roseann Paradiso Fodera

Only the first name, Roseann, of the third trustee was given last night along with the description of her as a lawyer who is a friend of Chairman Gravante’s and, who living in Bay Ridge and practices with her lawyer husband, has been a supporter of the library.  This new trustee is probably Roseann Paradiso or Paradiso-Fodera married to Richard Fodera.  If this guess about Fodera is not correct we will provide aan updating correction when we know.

These appointments come at a time when Mayor de Blasio is not following through on his campaign promise to insist on transparency from the BPL board (NYPL board also) and not to sell waste valuable public assets with an ill-advised sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights central downtown destination and other NYC libraries.