Monday, January 6, the Senior Missionaries in our mission had a group activity. We took a tour of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (commonly known as the Main Branch, the 42nd Street Library, or just the New York Public Library.) It is the flagship building in the New York Public Library system in the Midtown neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. The building was declared a National Historic Landmark in the 1960s.
One interesting thing we learned on our tour, was that underneath Bryant Park (the public park behind the Stephen A. Scwarzman Building) there are millions of books from the Library’s vast research collections, preserved in a state-of-the-art storage environment called the Milstein Research Stacks.
I told Brian that my favorite things that we saw on the tour:
The real Winnie-the-Pooh and friends are on display in the library with the “Treasures” exhibition. Christopher Robin Milne was born in 1920. A teddy bear (Winnie-the-Pooh), from Harrods in London, was given to Christopher Robin Milne on his first birthday. The rest of the stuffed animals, which Christopher Robin loved and played with throughout his childhood came next. One day, Christopher’s father, A.A. Milne, and an artist names Ernest H. Shepard, decided that these animals, and two other imaginary friends, Owl and Rabbit, would make fine characters in a bedtime story. From that day on, Pooh and his friends have had many adventures together.
Charles Dickens’s desk, writing slope, lamp, desk calendar, and chair.
A Gutenberg Bible from 1455. Approximately 180 copies of the Bible were printed; 48 are known to survive. Collector and Library founder James Lenox acquired the Library’s copy, the first one brought to the Americas, in 1847. Its arrival in New York is the stuff of romantic legend: Lenox’s agent instructed the Customs House officers to remove their hats upon seeing it, a tribute to this work’s historical importance.
After the tour, all 40 of us walked to lunch in the falling snow to the Grand Central Oyster Bar. It is the oldest restaurant in Grand Central.
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What an interesting and exciting day, visiting the library and being able to see Brian’s cousin! I spotted my Moreland friend, Steve Williams, in the pictures of the senior couples eating lunch. Fun times!