The New York Public Library is one of the great Beaux-Arts buildings in America. The New York Public Library's main branch was completed in 1911 on the site of a former reservoir, after twelve years of construction, built on a foundation of 500,000 cubic feet of Vermont marble. The two stone lions flanking the steps were sculpted by Edward Clark Potter and named Patience and Fortitude by Mayor LaGuardia in the Depression, as reminders of what New Yorkers would need to survive.
Inside, the Rose Main Reading Room runs nearly the length of a football field, with a painted ceiling 51 feet high and long oak tables lit by brass lamps. The library opened with more than a million books. It is a free public library, open to everyone, built with money from the estates of John Jacob Astor, James Lenox, and Samuel Tilden.
Climb the steps between the lions, notice the carved facades, and go inside to a reading room that is now yours to explore: one of the finest interiors in the city and one of the great free spaces in the world.