New York, NY – July 1, 2009 – The New York Public Library’s Mariners Harbor Branch in Staten Island has been selected as a winner of the 2009 Award for Excellence in Design from the New York City Design Commission. The awards, chosen by members of the The Public Design Commission of the City of New York, exemplify the highest standards in design. Scheduled to open in 2011, the highly anticipated 10,000 square foot branch library will serve a community of 30,000 residents. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will present the award to Paul LeClerc, President of The New York Public Library, and to architects Anna Torriani and Lorenzo Pagnamento of Atelier Pagnamenta Torriani, at a July 1, 2009 ceremony at the New Museum.

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New York, NY – June 24, 2009 – The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, in association with leading New York City cultural organizations and academic institutions, is pleased to announce Performing Revolution in Central and Eastern Europe. This five-month festival focuses on the performing arts as a powerful voice and contributing force in the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. Spearheaded by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, which will present a major exhibition on the themes of the festival, Performing Revolution in Central and Eastern Europe features over 20 events throughout New York City, with a specific focus on performing arts in the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia.

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The personal theatrical papers of Katharine Hepburn, which were acquired by The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in 2007, will be on view for the first time in the new library exhibition, Katharine Hepburn: In Her Own Files, opening Wednesday, June 10. Her long and rich theater career is documented through typescripts (some, like the script for Coco, annotated in Hepburn’s hand), hundreds of photographs (publicity shots and formal portraits, as well as informal snapshots and rehearsal candids), scrapbooks, promotional ephemera, and sixty years of correspondence (fan mail, congratulatory notes, and general letters from such notable friends and admirers as Judy Garland, Richard Burton, John Ford, Vivien Leigh, Peter O’Toole, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, and Jeremy Irons, among scores of others. She saved telegrams from her friends and from stage crews and even the cards that come with flower bouquets, including manysigned “Pot,” Hepburn’s pet name for long-time companion Spencer Tracy). The exhibition continues through Saturday, October 10, 2009 in the Vincent Astor Gallery of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, located on the Lincoln Center campus at 40 Lincoln Center Plaza. Admission is free. For exhibition information, call 212.870.1630 or visit the Library’s website at www.nypl.org/lpa. In conjunction with this exhibition, a series of Hepburn films based on stage plays will be screened on Saturday afternoons in July and August at the Library. (See separate list below for Katharine Hepburn: Stage to Screen film series.)

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Igor Stravinsky, Vaslav Nijinsky, Léon Bakst, Pablo Picasso, and George Balanchine are among the great collaborators who worked in Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, where they changed the face of modern ballet and influenced the course of the arts in the 20th century. Diaghilev’s Theater of Marvels: The Ballets Russes and Its Aftermath, a new exhibition at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, draws on diverse materials from the Library’s renowned collections to tell the remarkable story of the company and the impresario who founded it. Autograph scores by Stravinsky, costume and set designs by Léon Bakst, Nijinsky’s diary, Diaghilev’s notebooks, and hundreds of other treasures chart the trajectory of the legendary company, from its first stirrings within fin de siècle Russia to its astounding opening success on stage in Paris in 1909 and its 20 years of ground-breaking artistry, to its influence on the companies that followed in its footsteps.

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One of The New York Public Library’s greatest treasures, a full-text version of the Declaration of Independence handwritten by Thomas Jefferson will be on view from June 26 through August 1 at The New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building in the Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery. The display will be open for a special viewing over the Independence Day weekend, Friday July 3 through Sunday July 5. The exhibition also includes early printings of the Declaration as well as a letter from Benjamin Franklin to George Washington mentioning that the Declaration was being drafted. The Library is located at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Admission is free.

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June 17, 2009 – Gloria Hughes, Site Manager of The New York Public Library's Grand Concourse Branch, received the 2009 Maher Stern Award for Service Excellence at a ceremony held June 16th at the Grand Concourse Branch, located at 155 East 173rd Street in the Bronx. Allison Maher Stern established the Award for Service Excellence with her husband, Leonard Stern, in 1993. The award encourages high standards in branch library service by honoring a librarian and his or her staff for excellence. Included is a $1,000 prize for the winning librarian along with $1,000 to the branch to enhance its quality of service.

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The New York Public Library is launching its 2009 Summer Reading program with an afternoon of free performances, workshops, and games for audiences of all ages on June 6, from 2 to 6 p.m. at the Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. Included is a multimedia performance featuring pictures and songs by Morgan Taylor whose character Gustafer Yellowgold is an endearing and mildly subversive visitor from the sun. Another centerpiece of the day’s activities is a break-dancing spectacular with Rokafella, Kwikstep and the Full Circle Productions break-dancing troupe. The afternoon’s events will also include face painting, magic, gaming and crafts. Plus, librarians will be on hand signing patrons up for Summer Reading. The first 150 visitors to sign up will receive a pair of tickets to an upcoming Yankees game. The festival will be held in the Library’s Children’s Center at 42nd Street and Celeste Bartos Forum, both on the ground floor.

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Journalist and author Jane Mayer received the 2009 New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism this week for her recent book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals (Doubleday/Anchor) which chronicles the secret unconstitutional actions, including torture, taken by the Bush administration in the pursuit of terrorists. The award was presented by Library President Paul LeClerc, Selection Committee Chair James F. Hoge and Library Trustee David Remnick at a reception in the Trustees Room at the Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building.

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New York, NY—The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses [clmp] and The New York Public Library present Periodically Speaking, a reading series providing a major venue for emerging writers to present their work while emphasizing the diversity of America’s literary magazines and the magazine collections of The New York Public Library. Each event presents writers from three influential literary magazines, introduced by their editors.

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June 28, 2009 will mark the 40th anniversary of the historic Stonewall Riots that occurred in Greenwich Village, New York. Many cite the riots as the birth of the Gay Rights Movement in the United States. From June 1969 until June 1970, gays and lesbians in New York City radicalized in an unprecedented way, founding several activist groups that created a new vision for Gay Liberation. The exhibition 1969: The Year of Gay Liberation charts the emergence and evolution of this new vision from the Stonewall Riots to the first LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) Pride march on Christopher Street in June 1970. All of the materials for this exhibition were drawn from the LGBT collection, in the Manuscripts and Archives Division of The New York Public Library. 1969: The Year of Gay Liberation will be on display at The New York Public Library’s Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street from June 1, 2009 to June 30, 2009. Additionally, three related public events will be presented in June. Admission to the exhibition and programs is free.

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The New York Public Library recently acquired two important portfolios by contemporary photographers for its Photography Collection, one showcasing a extensive sample of American teenagers throughout the country, and the other focusing on the modest charm of New York boroughs often dwarfed in fame and glamour by Manhattan.

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Deanna Lee has been appointed Vice President for Communications and Marketing at The New York Public Library. Ms. Lee comes to the Library from the Asia Society, where she was the Vice President for Communications. Previously she had an extensive career in broadcasting as a producer for ABC’s World News and Nightline. Ms. Lee will develop a strategy to communicate the mission, resources, and activities of the Library as it proceeds with new initiatives and faces unprecedented demand for its services in a rapidly changing economic climate. In her new capacity she will oversee the Library’s departments of Public Relations, Marketing, Graphics, and Publications.

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(New York, NY) April 9, 2009 – The New York Public Library’s Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers has selected its eleventh class of Fellows: fourteen exceptional creative writers, independent scholars, and academics. The Fellows, whose appointments were announced today by Library President Dr. Paul LeClerc and Jean Strouse, the Sue Ann and John Weinberg Director of the Center, will have full access to the unparalleled research collections and online resources of The New York Public Library’s landmark Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. They will be in residence at the Center from September 2009 through May 2010, pursuing a wide range of book projects that will make extensive use of the Library's magnificent holdings.

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In response to overwhelming demand by the public, The New York Public Library has launched JobSearch@NYPL, a campaign to ensure that every job-seeking New Yorker is connected to the technologies and information they need – for free. “The new Job Search Central, a state of the art space at the Science, Industry and Business Library, has opened to help job seekers from entry through executive levels,” said Library President Paul LeClerc. “Throughout our system we have added more than 1,000 career-related classes, from resume-writing workshops to networking seminars to computer skills sessions, and we have provided special training to at least one staff member in each of our 87 branches to help users with job search needs.”

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Author Stian Hole and illustrator Shadra Strickland are the winners of the 2009 Ezra Jack Keats Awards, which recognize excellence in children’s literature by new authors and illustrators, who, like the late author/illustrator Ezra Jack Keats, offer fresh and positive views of the multicultural world inhabited by children today. Each winner receives a $1,000 cash prize and a bronze medallion. *The awards will be presented jointly on April 30 by The New York Public Library and the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation in a ceremony at the Library. Mr. Hole is honored for his book Garmann’s Summer, which deals with fear and courage, life and death, beginnings and endings from the point of view of a young boy about to start school. Ms. Strickland wins for her watercolor, gouache, charcoal, and pen illustrations in Bird, which captures the world of a young boy who escapes into art. There he finds an outlet for his emotions and imagination and the resilience to deal with the difficult realities of his life: an older brother who becomes addicted to drugs and the death of his beloved grandfather.

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Hitler’s occupation of France presented writers with a difficult, often dangerous dilemma: keep silent, collaborate, or resist the Germans and their Vichy allies. A new exhibition at The New York Public Library explores how Sartre, Gide, Cocteau and dozens of other public intellectuals responded to Nazi rule. Personal correspondence, photographs, manuscripts, books and posters -- most displayed for the first time in the United States -- illustrate the contrasting, often complex response by writers to the country’s defeat and the Vichy regime. Between Collaboration and Resistance: French Literary Life Under Nazi Occupation is on view at the Library’s D. Samuel and Jeane H. Gottesman Exhibition Hall from April 3 to July 25, 2009. Admission is free. The exhibition is accompanied by a companion volume presenting more than 650 archival documents, an April 3 symposium featuring leading French and American scholars, and screenings of rarely shown French films created during the Nazi period.

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The New York Public Library’s upcoming programming this spring brings an eclectic group of award-winning writers, editors, historians, and leaders to the Humanities and Social Sciences Library located at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Below are the Spring 2009 schedules for LIVE from the NYPL and The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.

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The monumental marble facade of The New York Public Library stretches 390 feet along Fifth Avenue in a grand statement of presence and purpose. Yet in the 96 years since the building opened, the Library's exterior, which also faces Bryant Park, 42nd Street and 40th Street, has been subject to forces of weather and urban pollution that have taken their toll, wearing away at the beauty and form of the intricate stone structure. Today the Library announced that it is undertaking a three-year restoration of the facade of the historic building now formally known as the Humanities and Social Sciences Library. The project will include a complete cleaning of the building's Vermont marble, repair of almost 3,000 cracks, protection and preservation of the many sculptural elements, and repair of the building's roof, stairs, and plazas. The restoration will be completed in time for the building's centennial, in 2011.

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(New York, NY) March 17, 2009 - At a ceremony last evening, Salvatore Scibona was presented with The New York Public Library’s 2009 Young Lions Fiction Award by Library President Paul LeClerc. The ceremony was held in the Celeste Bartos Forum of the landmark Humanities and Social Sciences Library. Ethan Hawke, one of the founders of the award, was joined onstage by actors Billy Crudup, and Zoe Kazan to read excerpts from each of the finalists’ works. The four other finalists for the award were Jon Fasman (for The Unpossessed City), Rivka Galchen (for Atmospheric Disturbances), Sana Krasikov (for One More Year), and Zachary Mason (for The Lost Books of the Odyssey).

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The vast underground network of tunnels in New York City is the focus of a historic exhibition allowing visitors into a world unknown, featuring the much-discussed, but little understood, mega-projects bringing the City’s transportation infrastructure into the 21st Century.The exhibition, titled The Future Beneath Us: 8 Great Projects Under New York, is the result of a unique collaboration between The New York Public Library and the New York Transit Museum, custodian of the most extensive collection of urban transportation materials in the United States.The exhibit is in two locations in Midtown Manhattan: The Science, Industry and Business Library’s Healy Hall, at 188 Madison Avenue, and the New York Transit Museum Gallery Annex and Store at Grand Central Terminal.The exhibition has been extended to November 1, 2009.Admission is free.

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The defining documents of the Beat generation, rare insights into the career of Katharine Hepburn, and a view of the plans that led to the landmark 1939 World’s Fair are among the revelations in a new web video series allowing viewers a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse at The New York Public Library’s most treasured collections, and the librarians and archivists entrusted with protecting them.

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New York, NY, October 23, 2008 – Foster + Partners, the acclaimed international architecture firm, has been selected to create the design to transform The New York Public Library's building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street into the world’s largest comprehensive library open to the public.

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A New York Public Library exhibition explores the rich history, legacy and influences behind Art Deco.

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A Re-envisioned Library System to Meet the Needs of a Growing, Changing New York

• Fifth Avenue Building Dramatically Renovated to Become Flagship Lending and Research Library, A Model for the Urban Library of the Future
• Large Hub Libraries Established in the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island as Anchors to Neighborhood Branches
• Expanded Digital Resources Increase Access to Library Collections
• $100 Million Gift From Stephen A. Schwarzman is the Largest Outright, Unrestricted Donation to a New York City Cultural Institution

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