The residents in the middle of the East River are happy to be making good use of their library and are excited for its future. The people living in the Roosevelt Island applauded on Thursday when the New York Public Library presented a plan for the location of the new branch of the library.
Designed by Smith-Miller+Hawkinson Architects LLP, the new library will stand in a 5,465-square-feet lot and will cost $7.5 million dollars. The opening schedule of the new branch will be in late 2017 or the first month of 2018, as reported by NY Curbed.
The 2,200-square-foot library that is currently serving the residents has three personal computers and 11 laptops for the use of patrons. The planned new library will have 16 personal computers and 24 laptops. There is no community room in the current library, but the new branch will have a 670-square-foot community room with an "assistive learning system," plus a 200-square-foot teen space and a 640-square-foot children's room.
The current library received a total of 88,000 visitors in 2015. According to the Roosevelt Islander, there are about 13,000 residents in Roosevelt Island and 44 percent of them have a library card.
Located on 524 Main Street, the New York Public Library is a growing facility in the Roosevelt Island, which has a plan to move down the street in late 2017 or early 2018 to better serve the residents, according to NYPL.
The library was started in 1976, when Dorothy and Herman Reade of Forest Hills, Queens, retired to Roosevelt Island and made a goal to create a community library. The one-room Roosevelt Island Community Library is run solely by volunteers, and has served residents for 20 years. In 1997, the library became the 85th branch of The New York Public Library, and it gave access to patrons the full contents of the NYPL's network.
Since then, the branch has attracted an ever-growing and diverse community of users, who enjoy a wide range of materials, programs and services.