Astor Hall

Alison Stewart: Welcome to Astor Hall: the heart of this building and one of the most significant rooms in New York City.

Look up and around you… Take in the embellishments, the arches, the columns. Liz Leber is managing partner at Beyer Blinder Belle Architects, who worked on key renovations in this building.

Liz Leber: Astor Hall is also an interior landmark designated by the Landmarks Preservation Commission. It is the grand foyer to one of the grandest buildings in New York City.

Alison Stewart: In the early 1900s, two architects, John M. Carrère and Thomas Hastings—immigrants who were relatively unknown at the time but won a competition to design the new Library—created this grand Beaux-Arts–style building to represent Gilded Age wealth and splendor.

Liz Leber: Some of the most identifiable aspects of this library as a Beaux-Arts building is what we call their axes or the lines that very clearly set up the symmetry of the building when you walk in. You walk into Astor Hall. You look left, and you look right, and you see a matching pair of stairs. There’s a sense of procession.

Alison Stewart: The elaborate design, rivaling some of Europe’s grandest landmarks, proclaimed that New York had arrived on the world stage.

And the star of this room is the floor-to-ceiling glowing white marble. It’s cold—go ahead, touch it—and sounds echo off the hard surface, filling the space.

This building is indeed opulent—but it was built “to be maintained forever for the free use of the people.” When the Library was established in 1895, its founders had this very vision in mind.

Carved into the stone, on the walls between the arches, are the names of the Library’s earliest benefactors, including Library founders John Jacob Astor, James Lenox, and Samuel Tilden—civic leaders and members of prominent families in 19th-century New York who helped create the Library. You might recognize some of the names. And above those names, also etched in the marble, are some of the fundamental ideals on which the Library was founded.

Now, look down at the plaque on the floor near the revolving doors. You will see a name most do not know: Martin Radtke, a humble Lithuanian immigrant who used the library’s resources to educate himself. This education enabled him to amass a small fortune, which he left to the Library in gratitude when he died. The Library in turn honored him with this plaque as a reminder that serving the public is at the center of the Library’s mission.

Now, if you head into the hall beyond the arches, you’ll find two interesting highlights: to the right is the Visitor Center, and to the left, near the Library Shop and Café, are remnants of the structure that stood here before the Library was built. Both are featured on this audio guide.