Why Turning Libraries Into Real Estate Deals Isn't The Good Deal Library and City Development Officials Describe

At first blush, many people have accepted what city development and library officials have regularly asserted about the deals launching this city-wide program of converting libraries into real estate deals (or, similarly, "redeveloping" our schools for that matter), that by "unlocking" library real estate development rights with multi-use developments it is a "win-win" proposition that benefits the libraries as well as the developers and real estate industry.

The offer of a free lunch is a tempting thing to hope for, but it doesn't bear scrutiny.  The math, when you do it, simply doesn't work out: It is expensive to tear down existing, frequently recently renovated libraries that the public has already invested substantially in.  When these development ideas are promoted the math goes from initial wishful fantasies, to deliberately obfuscated lack of transparency, to outright mendacious misrepresentation.  If library officials had insisted that the Donnell Library or the Brooklyn Heights Library be fully and completely replaced when they were sold (irrespective or their spaces being shoved underground), the sales would have to be calculated showing deep and obviously absurd public losses. . .

There is also the disruption that affects the public. And, although library and city officials try to skip over the point, when library assets are being divested, the libraries are, in the process, shedding their opportunities for future expansion and to keep pace as the city grows.

Moreover and probably most important, such multi-use development schemes force the libraries to "partner" with powerful private real estate interests that ultimately wind up in the drivers seat, setting the priorities with big checkbooks that bankroll false and misleading PR.  With the moneyed interests throwing their weight around, the public is exposed to bait-and-switch variations.  The Donnell Library sale deal that was described to the press and public when it was announced in no way resembled the deal that was consummated.

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)

Selling Libraries And The Broader Issue of Private Sector Plunder of Public Property

Libraries are not our only public commons that are undemocratically under attack.  The attacks on libraries reflect a much wider scourge of plundering our public assets with the selling off and privatizing of schools, hospitals, public housing, parks, and even the privatization of our streets and sidewalks.  Accordingly, instead of just fighting the library fight, Citizens Defending Libraries (and you can join us) has reached out to other activists to hold a series of forums on the selling off of public assets and help engender and understanding of the commonalty of the threats and tactics an subterfuges we see.  For instance, as Noam Chomsky has explained one such "standard technique of privatization: defund, make sure things don't work, people get angry, you hand it over to private capital.". .  (In other words, when the door is open to privatization and sell-off there is an inducement to underfund.)  And then, with the transfer to private ownership, the result for public gets even worse.

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)

The Biggest Lies To Watch Out For When Officials Sell Libraries

Some of The Biggest Lies To Watch Out For 

City and library officials working with real estate developers trot out a standard set of misleading falsehoods and ploys to promote library sales.  If you think they sound good, watch out, often what they are saying is pretty much opposite to the real truth.

Here are lies to watch out for:

Lies about proper public process.  What political officials will try to tell you about how libraries are being sold off with the due process of adequate public input and participation is often not true.

On September 30, 2013, the New York City Council had its first ever hearing hearing about the plans to sell city libraries.  It involved all sorts of coordinated testimony about how good it was to sell and shrink libraries around the city like Mid-Manhattan, SIBL and Brooklyn Heights.  It was basically a defensive action responding to the public efforts Citizens Defending Libraries was helping to spearhead after CDL's creation.  It was also a reaction to a June 27, 2013 New York State Assembly hearing about the library sales where the public had turned out universally opposing the library sales and library officials were crucified in the press for their incompetent responses.

At the September 30, 2013, City Council hearing BPL President Linda Johnson extolled the quality of `public involvement' in the sell-off of the Brooklyn Heights Library in response to a softball question that sounded prearranged.  Prepared for this, Citizens Defending Libraries was simultaneously submitting written testimony at the hearing directly contradicting that assertion in Ms. Johnson's testimony, pointing out that the:

public process for selling off New York City libraries, such as it exists, is confusing, deceptive and intentionally frustrating to those wishing to, in any way oppose, or question the wisdom of, selling off libraries, shrinking them, or underfunding them as a prelude to such sell-offs.

Pending library sales, frequently worked on secretly for years in advance, are not announced to the public until the sales are purportedly “done deals.”  The public will often be told to forget about expressing their opposition because of this.  Local officials will have signed on to the sales before the public knows or has been able to give them any input or reaction.

Officials will hold some public events as eyewash, but these eyewash events will not be about asking the public whether they want their library sold, whether they want it shrunk, whether they might actually want their library bigger, or how else they might want to plan for the future of the public property; the public will only be invited to express what they might want when their library is, in fact, sold and shrunk, its books eliminated.  Meanwhile, basic background information, like about the extent of the loss of books will not be forthcoming.

If there is going to be a ULURP process (not always the case because it is not always required), the public will be told to cool their heals and wait to express opposition to the project only when that ULURP process has all been rigged.  The ULURP process (Uniform Land Use Review Procedure) won't be launched or proceed to its next steps until the powers that control things have lined up the votes in advance to push the library sale through.

How rigged is this process?:  In the case of the sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library, when passionate and essentially unanimous testimony from the community opposing the sale overwhelmed the Brooklyn Community Board 2 land use Committee causing the committee to falter and vote that that the sale should not be approved and should not be considered again, the Chair of CB2 directed that approval of the proposed sale and shrinkage of the library be sent back to the committee on short notice over a Fourth of July weekend directing that "When this committee meets next it will be to do what they were supposed to. .  What should have taken place, what should have taken place at last Wednesday’s meeting."  The Land Use Committee then met again, comprised of a different set of members and voted for the sale while refusing to hear any public testimony.

The sale procedure progressed to be approved by the entire CB2 board to whom the CB2 Chair had refused to distribute the Citizens Defending Libraries letter addressed to them and which voted, for the most part without its members bothering to minimally acquaint themselves with the asset they were disposing.

Similarly, when the Brooklyn Heights Library then went before the City Planning Commission a panoply of conflicts of interest affecting the Commission whose members are heavily representative of the real estate industry interest, assured that the vote would be to sell and shrink the library as the Commission's Chair indicated a willingness to do the same sort of thing to turn NYC public schools into real estate deals.

The lie that the public should wait to oppose sale of libraries because it will have that opportunity at a later date (when the rigged "done deal" ULURP review process starts).   
The public is often told that there will be a process in which the public can oppose the sale of the library in the future so it is not appropriate or worthwhile to oppose that sale at this time.  The truth is that these deals are clearly presented for final steps like ULURP only after officials have done everything they can to assure that what the public may say during the process doesn't matter.

Lies that new "replacement" libraries will be as big or even bigger than the old.  Library officials routinely try to obscure the math of library shrinkage by odd and selective approaches to measurement concluding that because the new space will be "bigger" in terms of what they want or what is `publicly accessible' and therefore pronounce as being "bigger" replacement libraries that are actually smaller, sometimes startlingly so.  The NYPL's Central Library Plan was promoted as making a "bigger" library when it was actually taking about 400,000 square feet of library space and reducing it to about 80,000 square feet.  By disregarding that its Business, Career and Education functions were being terminated at the location, the BPL tried to sell the shrink-and-sink replacement Brooklyn Heights Library, one-third the size was, as being as big as the 63,000 square foot library being destroyed.

The above-ground portion of the Brooklyn Heights Library was about 38,000 square feet.  It had two more half floors of readily accessible books below ground.  The above-ground portion of the library to "replace" it will be just 15,000 square feet.

The lie that the library is too dilapidated will be too expensive and impossible to fix (especially its air conditioning).   The decision to sell the second biggest library in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Heights Library, was from all the evidence, probably made in 2007 (if not sooner.)  The announcement that it was going to be sold was kept under wraps and the sale did not get revealed until the beginning of 2013 when the plans was to push the sale through before December 31, 2013, the last day of the Bloomberg administration.   July Fourth weekend 2012, just six-months before the announced sale of the library it was announced that the air conditioning system for the library had broken down.  Library officials at the BPL then said a major reason the library was being sold was because the air conditioning could not be fixed.  That same summer of 2012 it was announced that libraries across the Brooklyn Public Library system were suffering from air conditioning problems that could not be solved.  The only library pushed for that no such broken air conditioning claim was made about is the ultra modern SIBL, completed in 1996.

Virtually every library that city and library administration officials have pushed forward for sale has been asserted to have insoluble air conditioning problems: The Donnell, Brooklyn Heights, Red Hook, Sunset Park, Mid-Manhattan, the research stacks at the 42nd Street Library.  Over and over again and right from the beginning we see libraries that were recently renovated proclaimed to be dilapidated and not worthy of maintenance.  These lies can be embarrassing: There were made about the Brooklyn Heights Library expanded and fully upgraded to be one of BPL's best in 1993; about SIBL, the "library of the future" built in 1996; about the Inwood Library who renovation NYPL President Tony Marx had just recently praised. 

The "there will be the same number of books" lie.  For more about how this isn't true see our section about how book counts are reducing at New York City libraries.

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)

How To Defend Libraries

Where Does It Go From Here?  What Can You do?

One thing you can do is consider this a worthy cause and inform yourself and others about it.  Protection and preservation of our libraries is something that most people instantly and automatically understand.  As one member of our group observed early on: "If you can't stop them at libraries, where can you stop them?"  That's why we must stop them.. .

 . .  But also, because people do understand what it means to protect libraries, because they understand it in their very bones, the protection of libraries is an issue and a cause that can be used as a fulcrum to push back on the many other issues that relate to it, the impoverishing privatizations of public assets in general, abuses of the real estate industry, the corrupting influence of money in politics, inequality of power and wealth and the abuses of power by the wealthy. 

What Can We Do Next?

We can alter the laws.  The library boards need to be made more accountable to the people the libraries are supposed to serve and there need to be more checks and balances to ensure the public is represented and prevent abuses.  With a change in law a wider range of elected public officials, including the New York Public Advocate, can be involved in appointing the NYC library board members.  Conflict of interest laws should be stronger and more vigorously and effectively enforced.

The New York State Attorney General, New York City and New York State Comptrollers, and the city's Public Advocate probably have sufficient powers to prevent current abuses at the libraries.  The should act to do so, but if they say they don't have that power, the law can made clear that they have and are required to use those powers.
 
Laws should be passed that make it illegal as a matter of public policy to silence librarians to prevent them from speaking out against the abuses they witness and voiding, as a matter of public policy, all of the contractual provisions previously entered.

Insist on transparency.  One of the ways that officials involved in selling libraries, shrinking and underfunding them, have been able to do so is through a lack of transparency that assists them in peddling claims that the actual facts ought to eventually contradict when discovered.  We, as the public, are entitled to transparency even as they avoid it.  We are entitled to demand it through our elected representatives, or, for most things, we can take matters into our own hands, via the Freedom of Information Laws that allow us to make Freedom of Information Law requests.  We can also encourage the press to inquisitively investigate and publish what ought to be published. 

Wear a Citizens Defending Libraries Button.  Wearing a "Don't Sell Our Libraries" Citizens Defending Libraries Button (or perhaps several of them) helps get the word out about what is going on and that the public broadly opposes it.  And if you wear one when talking face to face with public officials at events public forums, rallies, or community board meetings they will always know where you are coming from.

Get Signatures For Our Citizens Defending Libraries Letter of support.  Our Citizens Defending Libraries Letter of support, as intended, has been signed by many community groups, public interest groups, elected officials and candidates for office.

Sign our Citizens Defending Libraries petition.  Signing our Citizens Defending Libraries petition, and encouraging your friends to as well, communicates immediately our ever-increasing numbers to the elected officials.  It also means you will get emails about information that becomes important to communicate and that you can, in turn, pass along. . .

 . . . You can contact us about how best to canvass libraries and events to get the word out and collect more signatures for the petition.  We may send a team out to work with you.

Get on Our Mailing List.  You can get emails about what is happening if you sign our petition, but that goes through a MoveOn process that is cumbersome and slow.  You can get urgent emails quickly and participate in saving the libraries directly if you contact us and ask to be put on our mailing list.  Email us at: Cem62 [at] aol.com (subject line "library email list."

Testify at public hearings.   There are frequent opportunities to testify at public hearing either in person or by sending in written or emailed testimony.  Feel free to crib from our web pages and past testimony to make the points you want to make.  Keep track of these opportunities by getting our mailings, referring to our public Citizens Defending Libraries calendar or incorporating it into your own.

Birddog our elected officials.  Wherever you go (and we suggest that you get out and go places, because doing so can be meaningful) make it a point to bird-dog our public officials about this issue wherever they are.  Don't let them off the hook.

Birddog and get the press to do its job (that includes passing along our press releases and calling local outlets about them, plus commenting on local blogs).   The press that Citizens Defending Libraries and the broader community has been able to get about the flimflam of selling off libraries has been very important to saving them.  Unfortunately, the press has not been particularly robust in doing its job.  Sometimes, engaging in press release journalism the press has simply reported the sale and shrinkage of libraries along with their underfunding as a good thing while leaving out and obscuring the public's opposition to these shenanigans. . . .

. . .  WNYC, which takes a lot of money from the Revson Foundation, has, for instance, often been virtually complicit in the promotion of the library sales.  By contrast, coverage by WBAI of our fight against the library sales has been good.  Or you can listen to this coverage on the public radio station, WFUV, broadcasting from Fordham University.

All members of the public, especially those who can contact people they know on the communications industry are capable of assisting us in ensuring that the issues get the coverage they deserve.

Write Letters to the Editor and Comment on Articles Published on the Web.  One good way to hold the press accountable while piggybacking on library and real estate development coverage that is out there is to respond with letters to the editor and comments to articles published on the web.  In some cases, newspapers like "The Observer" and "The Brooklyn Paper" will publish well written web comments in their print editions as letters to the editor.

Use social media to stay informed and pass the word around.  Citizens Defending Libraries is doing its best to generate Tweets on Twitter (@DefendLibraries), Facebook posts, YouTube videos, Flyers, and emails that you can easily pass around to get the word out.  This can be a way of passing around good news articles and important press when they do get generated.  We hope you take advantage.

Speak or invite us to speak about libraries at your community organization.  Perhaps you belong to a church or religious congregation.  Let them and/or your local community board know about the situation.  

Stay on top of what is happening with your own library and keep us informed.  The city has many libraries.  The advance warning signs that a library will soon be one of the next to be sacrificed may be subtle.  Often, the users, members of the community and local librarians will be able to be the first to spot what is going on.  We need everyone to be alert and it helps if information is passed along to us that we can then pass along more broadly.

Help with research.  Much of what we have been able to do in terms of sounding the alarm has been because of research that allowed us to find out about and inform the public concerning things that are not publicly known.   Library lovers are often excellent researchers.  Pitch in to add to our knowledge store.

Help with FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) requests.  Requesting information from government and library administration doesn't have to be done by lawyers (although sometimes it helps to be a lawyer to sue when FOIL requests are ignored as they have been).  Anybody can do it and journalists frequently make such requests.  It does require being organized and some follow-up.  All three library systems are subject to the New York State Open Meetings Law and must produce minutes and information concerning their meetings.  The Brooklyn and Queens Library system are also both subject to the NYS Freedom of Information Law (and the NYPL should be and can still be asked for information,)

Sing the Judy Gorman Library Song.   Activist singer song writer Judy Gorman who has played with Pete Seeger in the past is a supporter of our cause and wrote a marvelous song about the library sales excellent for singing at demonstrations or as you walk the streets collecting petition signatures.
     
This page (which will be periodically updated) provides resources in connection with the petition and campaign to oppose the defunding of New York City's libraries, the shrinkage of the system and the sale of library real estate in deals that prioritize benefit for developers.

The morning crowd waiting for the Brooklyn Heights downtown library to open

The Petition Being Put Forth By Citizens Defending Libraries

The first petition (gathered over 17,000 signature, most of them online- available at signon.org with a background statement and can still be signed).   On June 16, Citizens Defending libraries issued a new updated petition that you can sign now:

Mayor de Blasio: Rescue Our Libraries from Developer Destruction

CONTACT: To contact Citizens Defending Libraries email MDDWhite (at) aol.com.

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)

ARCHIVED- FORMER Citizens Defending Libraries Resource And Main Page

Defend our libraries, don't defund them. . . . .  fund 'em, don't plunder 'em 

Citizens Defending Libraries Rally at City Hall 4/18/2013 with Comptroller John C. Liu

NOTICE: WE HAVE A NEW MAIN WEB PAGE FOR CITIZENS DEFENDING LIBRARIES.  (This page is an archive of our former main page for Citizens Defending Libraries.)

Citizens Defending Libraries was founded in February of 2013 in response to then breaking headlines about how, across the city, our public libraries were proposed to be sold and shrunk, with libraries being intentionally underfunded, their books and librarians eliminated.   During its its as yet short existence Citizens Defending Libraries has had a number of significant successes fending off and preventing library sale and shrinkages and there has been some progress towards restoration of the funding of libraries to a proper pre-library-sales plan level of proper funding, but the libraries are still besieged by the threat of such plans.

This page (which will be periodically updated) provides resources in connection with the petition and campaign to oppose the defunding of New York City's libraries, the shrinkage of the system and the sale of library real estate in deals that prioritize benefit for developers.

Chart from Center From an Urban Future report showing sharp decline in funding (coinciding with plans to sell off/"leverage" libraries) against escalating use.  

The first petition (gathered over 17,000 signature, most of them online- available at signon.org with a background statement and can still be signed).   On June 16, Citizens Defending libraries issued a new updated petition that you can sign now:

Mayor de Blasio: Rescue Our Libraries from Developer Destruction

You can also paste the following url into your browser.

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/mayor-de-blasio-rescue-2?source=s.tw&r_by=5895137 

This José Marti quote which can be found in this plaque on 41st Street's Library Walk is included in the petition to save New York City's libraries

All libraries in the New York City system are currently under siege.  For more details about affected libraries click here:  What Libraries Are Affected By City Strategy Of Defunding, Shrinking, Selling Off Libraries?

Here are additional action steps you can take that go beyond promoting the petition in order to help this campaign succeed: Action Steps You Can Take Including Contacting Elected and Other Public Officials.

Note about Citizens Defending Libraries (and allied groups) on Facebook and Twitter:   This, or any other of the individual pages at this Citizens Defending Libraries web location can be "liked" on Facebook if you go to the bottom of this page.  In addition, there is a Citizens Defending Libraries Facebook page that can also be "liked" on Facebook at:  Facebook- Citizens Defending Libraries (which will help you get notice of articles and new information pertaining to the cause when there are updates).  You can also follow Citizens Defending @DefendLibraries on twitter.

Our Facebook and Twitter will keep you up to date with the latest news and articles as they come out and allow you to easily share Tweets and posts.

In addition, the Committee to Save the New York Public Library has a Facebook page, and can be followed on Twitter (@saveNYPL).  Library Lovers League also has a Facebook page, and can be followed on Twitter (@LibraryLoversNY).

 News ArticlesAvailable Reference Articles

 •    Wall Street Journal: Undertaking Its Destruction, by Ada Louise Huxtable, December 3, 2012.

“There is no more important landmark building in New York than the New York Public Library, known to New Yorkers simply as the 42nd Street Library, one of the world's greatest research institutions. Completed in 1911 . . . . it is an architectural masterpiece. Yet it is about to undertake its own destruction. The library is on a fast track to demolish the seven floors of stacks just below the magnificent, two-block-long Rose Reading Room for a $300 million restructuring referred to as the Central Library Plan.”

 •    New York Times: Critic’s Notebook- In Renderings for a Library Landmark, Stacks of Questions, by Michael Kimmelman, January 29, 2013.

“this potential Alamo of engineering, architecture and finance would be irresponsible. . . a not-uncommon phenomenon among cultural boards, a form of architectural Stockholm syndrome.”

•    Noticing New York: 

    •    New City-Wide Policy Makes Generation Of Real Estate Deals The Library System’s Primary Purpose, (January 31, 2013).

 “Do we want a shrinking library system for a growing, wealthier city? . .  
     . . .  It’s what we are going to get as the principal purpose of the library system becomes the generation of real estate opportunities for developers.  This new city-wide policy has, in a very harmful way, turned into a perverse incentive for the city to defund libraries and drive them into the ground.”

    •    City Strategy Of Withholding Basic City Services To Blackmail Public Into Accepting Bigger Development, (Friday, February 1, 2013)

    •    What Could We Expect Forest City Ratner Would Do With Two Library Sites On Sale For The Sake Of Creating Real Estate Deals? (Sunday, February 3, 2013)

Two of the sites identified for sale in the forefront of this march towards divestiture of assets with a concomitant shrinkage of the system are in Brooklyn.   . . .  Whether by coincidence or not, both of these sites . .  are immediately adjacent to property the government has previously put in the hands of Forest City Ratner pursuant to no-bid deals . . .

    •    Libraries That Are Now Supposedly “Dilapidated” Were Just Renovated: And Are Developers’ Real Estate Deals More Important Than Bryant Park? (Saturday, February 9, 2013)

    •    If Our Besieged Libraries Could Speak For Themselves: Maybe They Do! A Petition And Efforts To Save New York’s Libraries From Developer Deals, (Wednesday, February 20, 2013)

The greatest shame of such a plan is that it, even if it shakes loose a few real estate deals, maybe a few every year, it is a travesty to continually drives all libraries and the entire system into the ground financially.

•    Center For An Urban Future:  Report - Branches of Opportunity, by David Giles, January 2013

[Libraries] “have experienced a 40 percent spike in the number of people attending programs and a 59 percent increase in circulation over the past decade”

 •    New York City Independent Budget Office:  Funding Cuts Could Shelve Many Library Branches, by Kate Maher and Doug Turetsky, April 13, 2011 

“The funding fall-off is already taking a toll on the city’s three library systems, particularly the systems in Brooklyn and Queens.” . . .“more than three dozen branch libraries may be closed.”  [Bloomberg on a course to bring waning city funding for New York’s three library systems to its] “lowest level since the 1990s.”   [The city’s 59 community boards ranked library services their] “third highest budget concern” . . [and] “Brooklyn’s community boards ranked libraries their top priority.”

.•    The Albert Shanker Institute:  The High Cost Of Closing Public Libraries, by Matthew Di Carlo, April 18, 2011

In fiscal year 2008 (again, according to the U.S. Census Bureau), there were roughly 9,300 public libraries in the U.S., with a total cost of around 10.7 billion dollars. That figure represents roughly 0.4 percent – four tenths of one percent – of all state and local government expenditures. On a per capita basis, this is about 35 dollars per person.  [local-level analyses] “have found that for every dollar we spent on public libraries, the public realizes about 3-5 dollars in benefits.”

•    The Daily News:  Coming to Brooklyn Heights: the incredible shrinking library, patrons and residents charge -- Controversial plan to sell library building to private developer who will build apartment tower over it, by Lore Croghan, February 17, 2013.

. . . a controversial plan to sell the city-owned Brooklyn Heights Library building to a private developer who will erect an apartment tower with a new, 15,000 square foot branch - smaller than the book hall that’s there now.. . . many patrons use the business library like it’s part of their neighborhood branch — and are upset the space will be eliminated.

•     Library Journal: Donnell sale highlights need for transparency in decision-making, by Francine Fialkoff, Editor-in-Chief, February 1, 2008. 

. . . the building that housed Donnell has been sold to make way for a hotel and a much smaller public library. .  (w)ith the proposed library having less than half the space for public services as the old Donnell . . . questions remain about the location of some of the collections. . . More importantly, the breakup of the collections diminishes the role of Donnell as a central library . . .  The decisions . . .  [were] communicated to staff (and in the case of Donnell, to the public) largely after the big decisions have been made.

Should a public/private entity like NYPL. .  so blithely sidestep public and staff input? [The] Libraries Subcommittee chair of the New York City Council . . . “. . didn't know about the Donnell sale ahead of time.”  “It's troubling . . . in terms of . .  the whole mission of the library.”

. . .  It's way past time for NYPL leaders to come out from behind their cloak of secrecy. .  get staff and public feedback before making any other sweeping changes.

•      Walkers In The City:  Patience and Fortitude, by Romy Ashby. February 22, 2013.

The meeting was crowded with mostly older people hearing the same kind of talk about their library and smelling a rat. “The 42nd Street library isn’t the only library in trouble,” a man said. “It’s the whole library system.” A lady in her seventies told of standing up to Robert Moses and winning. “We’re not gonna watch our libraries be demolished!” she said. “We want the library we have, nothing less! The minute you give in to their conditions you’re finished! You get bupkis!” I sat and listened, and some of what I heard was this:

The city is deliberately underfunding the libraries despite library use being way up. Perfectly good libraries are being labeled ‘Dilapidated’ to justify their destruction. Librarians have been warned to sound enthusiastic if asked about any such plans. The money from the sale of libraries will not go back into the library system, despite what library brass may say. . .

•        The Leonard Lopate Show: Controversy at the New York Public Library, Scott Sherman, a contributing writer for The Nation and Caleb Crain, a former Fellow at the NYPL and author of American Sympathy, talk about the proposed changes, staffing cuts and construction plans, March 12, 2012.



•       The Nation: Upheaval at the New York Public Library, by Scott Sherman, November 30, 2011.

•       The Nation: The Hidden History of New York City’s Central Library Plan: Why did one of the world’s greatest libraries adopt a $300 million transformation without any real public debate?, by Scott Sherman, August 28, 2013.

 For two years, the NYPL has refused to discuss the CLP in detail, and many questions remain unanswered. How and why did one of the world’s greatest libraries get into the real estate business? How did the CLP, which was formulated between 2005 and early 2007, advance into late 2011 without any significant public debate or discussion? Who first conceived the idea of demolishing book stacks that were constructed by Carrère and Hastings in the first decade of the twentieth century? What role did the Bloomberg administration play in the creation of the CLP? Finally, what was the role of Booz Allen Hamilton—the gargantuan consulting firm whose tentacles reach into the defense, energy, transportation and financial service sectors—which was hired by the NYPL in 2007 to formulate what became known inside the trustee meetings as “the strategy”?

•       The Wall Street Journal: Clueless at the Corcoran- What the museum's latest bad decision says about nonprofit governance, by Eric Gibson, February, 24, 2014.

. . .  the untold story of our time is the emerging crisis in nonprofit governance, where boards embark on policies that go against-and even imperil-the mission of the institution they are charged to oversee and protect.

. . . The New York Public Library wants to gut its magnificent Beaux Arts building on Fifth Avenue and change it from a research institution to, as Ada Louise Huxtable wrote in this newspaper, "a state-of-the-art, socially interactive, computer-centered" circulating library, with fewer books, a good number of them moved off-site.

•       The Brooklyn Eagle (Exclusive): Brooklyn Public Library in line for audit, says Comptroller Stringer, by Mary Frost, February, 28, 2014.

Groups opposing the controversial sales of Brooklyn and Manhattan library branches to developers have long been pushing for an audit of the BPL and NPL systems. . .

“Some of the things raised with respect to the Queens library system are interesting and worth investigating but the Queens expenditures ($140K for a conference deck) are penny ante compared to the library sales at the NPL and the BPL,” commented Michael D. D. White, a founding member of Citizens Defending Library, following a Brian Lehrer interview with Comptroller Stringer. “The Queens Library system has not been selling off libraries like the other two,” White added.

•       City Limits: New Scrutiny of City's Library Trustees- The trustees of the city's library systems oversee more than 200 branches and the spending of hundreds of millions of city dollars. How representative of the city are they?, by Suzanne Travers, June 18, 2014.

Over the last year, library trustees have seen more of the spotlight than usual because of moves that put boards at odds with public opinion. . .

* * *
As repositories of information available to anyone who walks through the door, libraries have always helped foster transparency, accountability and democracy. Their boards, however, struggle on all three counts. 

 •      The Brian Lehrer Show: Giving Libraries Their Due, David Giles, research director at the Center for an Urban Future and the author of the report, "Branches of Opportunity", argues that New York City's public libraries deserve even more support in the digital age. (Click below to listen) January 15, 2013.

More people visited public libraries in New York than every major sports team and every major cultural institution combined.

Chart from the Independent Budget Office- Adjustments for inflation (per the Urban Future report) shows downturn in starkest relief.

Meville House article on Citizens Defending Libraries event used picture from July rally where Bill de Blasio joined CDL to call for a halt to these library sales.  Video of event on CDL's Youtube channel.

  •      Melville House: Citizens Defending Libraries calls the Central Library Plan “a real estate grab” and “contrary to the public interest”, by Claire Kelley, February 19, 2014.

Citizens Defending Libraries, which was co-founded by Michael D. D. White and Carolyn McIntyre, has been organizing protests and actions against the Central Library Plan. They have told us that they are continuing to solicit "petition signatures to ensure the de Blasio administration scraps all of the Bloomberg library sell-off plans.". .

. . . Citizens Defending Libraries is just now arriving at our first anniversary, just blowing out the single candle on our birthday cake.  We formed in response to breaking headlines at the very beginning of last year about how libraries were being sold off at the end of the Bloomberg administration in deals that would benefit real estate developers, not the public. 

  •      New York Times: Denying New York Libraries the Fuel They Need, by Jim Dwyer, April 23, 2015.

The city's libraries - the fusty old buildings, and a few spiffier modern ones, . .  have more users than major professional sports, performing arts, museums, gardens and zoos - combined.

* * * *

Over the last decade, they have not gotten anywhere near the kind of capital funding enjoyed by sports teams.

From the 2006 fiscal year through 2014, the city budgeted at least $464 million to build new baseball stadiums for the Yankees and the Mets, and $156 million for the Barclays Center. That's $620 million for just those three sports arenas - a sum more than one-third greater than the $453 million that the city committed for capital improvements to the its 206 branch libraries and four research centers, which serve roughly seven times as many people a year as attend baseball games. (The budget figures were provided by the city's Independent Budget Office; the teams are getting an additional $680 million in subsidies spread over 40 years.)

For decades, the libraries have served a single function in the city budget process: hostages. Mayors say they have to cut library hours to make the financial books balance.. .

 Additional Links. For more in a running series of Noticing New York articles about the libraries click here: Libraries Series.  Also, here are pages with articles that reference respectively 1.)  The Central Library Plan affecting the Tilden Astor Central Reference Library at 42nd Street, the Mid-Manhattan, Library, SIBL and the Donnell, 2.) The Brooklyn Heights libraries, and The Pacific Branch library, and 3.) Libraries in general.  

Foreground: The lion Patience , of Patience and Fortitude fame, in front of 42nd Street Research Library, whose research stacks will be sacrificed.  Background:  Mid-Manhattan Library that will be sold in system shrinkage plans

Flyers and Handouts Images, Cartoons, Flyers, Handouts Posters 

For images and cartoons for posters, rallies and handouts CLICK HERE.  For flyers and handouts for canvassing and getting the word out about the petition CLICK HERE.

Videos

Citizens Defending Libraries is making videos available on the Citizens Defending Libraries YouTube Channel.  Selected videos from that channel can also be found here in the Video Page.

Related Petitions

(It is expected more will be added to this list with accompanying explanations)

**** Citizens Defending Libraries is right now is working with the Committee to Save the New York Public Library and Library Lovers League to make sure every signs and (electronically) sends this email to the mayor (CCs are going to other elected officials): Email the Mayor!  ****


There is another separate petition (currently over 1300 signatures) by the Committee to Save the New York Public Library that has been up for some time and specifically opposes the Central Library Plan in Manhattan:

    Anthony W. Marx: Reconsider the $350 million plan to remake NYC's landmark central library

The following petition to save Long Island College Hospital (LICH) is relevant to the save the libraries petition, particularly for the residents of Brooklyn Heights and Northwest Brooklyn, because of commonality of related issues that were explained at the annual Brooklyn Heights Association meeting and in the following article:  Wednesday, February 13, 2013, One-Stop Petition Shopping: Report On The Brooklyn Heights Association Annual Meeting, LICH and Libraries.

Governor Andrew Cuomo and NYS Health Department Commissioner Dr. Nirav Shah : Keep University Hospital Brooklyn at Long Island College Hospital open, by  Assemblywoman Joan Millman

The morning crowd waiting for the Brooklyn Heights downtown library to open

The Petition Being Put Forth By Citizens Defending Libraries


The first petition (gathered over 17,000 signature, most of them online- available at signon.org with a background statement and can still be signed).   On June 16, Citizens Defending libraries issued a new updated petition that you can sign now:

Mayor de Blasio: Rescue Our Libraries from Developer Destruction

You can also paste the following url into your browser.

http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/mayor-de-blasio-rescue-2?source=s.tw&r_by=5895137 

CONTACT: To contact Citizens Defending Libraries email Backpack362 (at) aol.com.

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

One of “100 Ways To 100 (Expert Advice for a Longer Life)”: “Never Stop Reading- Join Your Local Library”

Like the glittering gold of El Dorado the fabled Fountain of Youth eternally beckons- And it sells magazines off the rack at you local pharmacy or convenience store.

We won’t represent this advice as the most authoritative, but we thought our fellow library defenders would find the thought entertaining, and not at all bad advice.  Want to live longer?: Keep reading and read physical books from you local library.

One of our library defenders picked up what appeared to be a sort of one-shot magazine-style publication put out by some group called Athlon Classics: 100 Ways To 100 - Expert Advice for a Longer Life (display until 717/17).  Don’t try to too hard to find anything about it from the internet unless you just want to pick up a copy on Ebay.

In “Section Three- Stay Brain Fit” one of the 100 suggestions to live longer is to “Never Stop Reading- Join Your Local Library” and read physical books.  The tip tells you that “according to a study conducted at Harvard Medical School” reading ebooks from a screen before bed “can trigger some undesirable side-effects” because the “blue light” negatively impacts “your circadian clock.”  We have heard the same thing from Bette Midler in interviews although we can’t say she is an authority either.

The “Stay Brain Fit” tip goes on to advise getting and reading physical books from your local library where, “you’ll get a chance to take advantage of an institution that has nurtured the best minds of American generations for centuries.”  (Bette Midler has said that she was one of those nurtured “best minds” speaking at a Barnes and Nobles talk with Judy Gold about how she had practically been raised is the Morgan-designed library in her native Hawaii.  More recently, Midler has been enlisted to say how spends valuable research time in libraries.)

The “Stay Brain Fit” tip then tells readers that “expert librarians are better-informed search engines than even Google” and goes on to tout the benefit of finding social interactions at the library (one reason we think that working with librarians is more fun than Google).

If the magazine has another tip about staying socially engaged other than some quick advice introducing the Happiness section (“engagement with friends, family and the community” matters), we missed it although there is definitely evidence that social connectedness prolongs life significantly, as the point is made in the research on the subject and book “The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest” by Dan Buettner.

Although the magazine advises that reading physical books from a library is helpful for longevity and offers quite a few more tips about how good mental stimulation is good for longevity, it misses mentioning the research that physical books are likely better for learning well than digital books.

Real Estate News: Even While Sacrificing NYC PUBLIC Libraries To Create Real Estate Transactions, Developers Use The Creation of PRIVATE Libraries To Promote Their Projects

While NYC developers are clearly eyeing New York City public libraries for how they can be turned into real estate deals like, for instance, the luxury tower that the central destination Manhattan Donnell Library was turned into and the luxury tower that the central destination Brooklyn Heights Library is being turned into, developers apparently also value private libraries as a selling point for their developments.  Which is to say that as the industry is besieging and destroying public libraries it is creating small private libraries to sell its product.

Not that many months before it was announced that the Business Career and Education Library Brooklyn Heights Library serving the central business district in Brooklyn’s downtown would be sold for a shrink-and-sink real estate transaction, the New York Times ran a front page article on Sunday Real Estate Section an article about developer incorporation of private libraries into their projects to enhance their attraction marketing their product.  See: Buildings with Libraries: A Soft-Spoken Amenity, Joanne Kaufman, April 5, 2012.

Luxury tower apartments that replaced Donnell Library created were repeated advertised in the New York Timed featuring the private library in the Penthouse. 

Conceived at essentially the same time, the shrink-and-sink sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library replicated shrink-and-sink sale of the Donnell Library.  Those luxury tower apartments that the shrink-and-sink disposal Donnell Library created were advertised repeatedly with a double page spread in the front of the Sunday New York Times Magazine with a visual that featured a view of the private library in the building’s penthouse.  That’s the penthouse that was on the market for $60 million in stark contrast to the less than $25 million the NYPL netted when it sold for drastic shrinkage the five-story, 97,000 square foot library. . . .

. .  The calculations are embarrassing in other respects, including that the penthouse apartment devotes a far, far higher percentage of its floor space to luxury owner’s private library as a amenity than New York City devotes in its budget to public libraries as a shared resource serving all New Yorkers.  See- What’s Wrong With These Numbers?: The Baccarat Tower’s $60M Penthouse and NYC’s Library Budget, April 29, 2014.

Until this year (2016), the Brooklyn Heights Association annually replenished its war chest through house tours capitalizing on people’s voyeuristic infatuation and longing for luxury real estate living.  The tours afforded the public tantalizing views of the select interiors of many of the magnificent homes in the neighborhood.  Proceeds for the tours funded whatever fights the BHA took on in its proclaimed mission to protect the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood.  In the 1980s until 1993, when it was finally accomplished, one of those fights was for a substantial enlargement of the Brooklyn Heights Library.  That substantial enlargement of the library was accompanied by a complete and full upgrade that made it one of the most technologically advanced and computer equipped libraries in Brooklyn.

 . . . Ironically, come 2013 the Brooklyn Heights Association promoted the sale and shrinkage of that same library (which through sale of real estate development rights would benefit the private saint Ann’s School behind the scenes- Saint Ann’s School with which the BHA and its decision-making library committee was tightly linked).

 . . .  Another irony: One of the most spectacular hits on the BHA house tour the year before the BHA started promoting the sale and shrinkage of the local public library, an extravaganza to induce mouth-watering salivation, was a townhouse equipped with its own two-story private library customized with magnificently detailed yellow-green wood bookshelves . . .   

The 2012 Times Real Estate section article about the real estate sales advantage of libraries for developers is about the creation of private libraries to be shared as common areas by all the residents of a building.  It has a senior VP of the real estate brokerage Corcoran Group, Tami Shaoul, explain that while when selling apartments, no buyers have told her that they, “must have a library,” their eyes “light up if they actually see one,” and  “It makes them feel good about the building because they imagine themselves having that quiet space.”

We also learn from the article that the existence of such a library can speak “to the fact that this was more than a building. It was a community of people who still read” and that “in the highly competitive New York marketplace” a common shared library “is a low-cost frill.”  This is in a developers’ “amenities arms race” involving more expensive amenities such as “cold storage, wine cellar, gym, pool, hot tub, children’s playroom, ’tween playroom, party room,” . . . real estate developers are spending money.  And we learn that the “library at New York by Gehry” in the financial district is “a hit” (with “leather sofas and accent chairs”) and that “some of New York’s glossiest and highest profile new developments boast of having one.”

If only we as a city could also boast of a wonderful, robustly supported public library around every corner from all of these developer projects.