{"id":1532,"date":"2010-10-03T17:07:17","date_gmt":"2010-10-03T21:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=1532"},"modified":"2010-10-03T17:07:17","modified_gmt":"2010-10-03T21:07:17","slug":"things-i-love-about-new-york-no-1-the-nyc-public-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/history\/things-i-love-about-new-york-no-1-the-nyc-public-library\/","title":{"rendered":"Things I Love about New York No. 1 – The NYC Public Library"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"New<\/a>
New York Public Library circa 1908<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So – time to play tourist. I set out, map in hand, to find the New York Public Library.<\/p>\n

The library has dozens of branches around the five boroughs, but its heart is in the Schwarzman Building on 5th Avenue.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The library today<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When it was opened in 1911, it was the largest marble building in the US – with a million books on it’s 75 miles of shelves.<\/p>\n

It looks like this right now…<\/p>\n

I spent a couple of hours wandering around inside…<\/p>\n

Its interesting how the aura of old-world scholarship remains, despite the computers scattered everywhere, and the people like me, wandering around in wide-eyed wonder at the splendour of it all.<\/p>\n

See all those books on the shelves…<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A reading room<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They are just catalogues of the actual books, many of the rare and out of print, which are stored in the parts of the building the public can’t access.<\/p>\n

Each catelogue is page after page of photocopies of the old style file cards which have recorded the contents of the vaults since the early 1900s.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A catalogue<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The library now has more than 50 million items – not just books, but photographs and maps and letters and diaries donated by some of the most famous and brilliant peope of the last century.. or more.<\/p>\n

It’s almost enough to make a girl want to start writing historical novels just so I can do my research here.<\/p>\n

It also has a Gutenberg Bible… which you are not allowed to photograph.<\/p>\n

It’s over 500 years old and quite simply beautiful. Almost enough to bring a tear to the eye of a jet lagged author.<\/p>\n

There is also a hand written copy of the Declaration of Independence but that was not on display the day I went.<\/p>\n

There’s a good excuse, if one is needed, to go back another day.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, I am now the proud owner of a NYC Public Library card. There are more than 15 million books I can now borrow or browse in one of the grand reading rooms.<\/p>\n

Best get to it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So – time to play tourist. I set out, map in hand, to find the New York Public Library. The library has dozens of branches around the five boroughs, but its heart…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-my-travels","category-reading"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1532\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}