In 2021, the New York Public Library broke ground to completely renovate five original Carnegie libraries in high-needs communities with a new set of design standards: Port Richmond in Staten Island, 125th Street and Fort Washington in Manhattan, and Hunts Point and Melrose in the South Bronx. The projects, managed by Mitchell Giurgola and CannonDesign, will preserve the historic character of the branches while modernizing the interior and maximizing and expanding public space to serve today’s library patrons.

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This is the story of an immigrant, coming to America in the 1880s, building an empire, and donating most of his millions to fund public libraries across the country. The man was Andrew Carnegie, who arrived in the U.S. at the age of thirteen with his family from Scotland. His family was dirt poor, but young Carnegie’s world opened up when he was invited to spend Saturday afternoons at a local private library by a wealthy Pittsburgh man. It was then that he resolved that if he would ever obtain wealth, it should be used to establish free libraries.

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In 2020 the Historic Districts Council was successful in creating a thematic State and National Register Historic District for all the Carnegie Libraries in New York City. This is important not only because of the historical research but because it provides a variety of incentives for the libraries: they ware now eligible for special funding of capital needs, demolitions or serious alterations will be prevented, and any appropriate alterations, renovations or restorations will have the added benefit of guidance from the New York State Office of Historic Preservation. HDC was awarded a New York State Historic Preservation Excellence in Historic Documentation Award by Andrew Cuomo as a result of this effort.

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