Thank Goodness It's Monday #307

KNOW THE PAST, FIND THE FUTURE:

READ BETWEEN THE LIONS

The world-renowned pair of marble lions that stand proudly before the Majestic Beaux-Arts building of the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street in Manhattan have captured the imagination and affection of New Yorkers – and the world – since the library was dedicated on May 23, 1911.

And, as we begin celebrating this Centennial Anniversary of the Library, I wonder if the lions still have meaning for us in this age of online info and digital downloads.

First, some background: Sculpted by Edward Clark Potter from pink Tennessee marble, they are trademarked by the library and featured on major occasions.

• The lions have witnessed countless parades and pageants.
• They've been photographed by countless tourists, caricatured in cartoons, and one even served as the hiding place for the Cowardly Lion in the motion picture The Wiz.
• And, quite logically, they’ve been made into bookends.

And, although decorating these kings of the asphalt jungle has stopped because it was too damaging –

• Traditionally, for the winter holidays, each lion had been adorned with a holly wreath that weighed 60 pounds.
• During one Yankee/Mets Subway Series the north side lion wore an extra-extra-large Yankee baseball cap; the south side counterpart wore a Mets cap.  

To celebrate the 100^th Anniversary they were rendered half-size in Legos (60,000 of them, all “standard gray.”)

The “names” of the original NYPL Library Lions have changed over the decades.

First the Library Lions were called Leo Astor and Leo Lenox after The New York Public Library founders John Jacob Astor (the USA’s first multi-millionaire) and James Lenox.

Later they were known as Lord Astor and Lady Lenox, also Leo and Leonora, (although both sport manly manes).

During the economic depression of the 1930's, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia gave them names that represented the qualities he felt folks would need in those tumultuous times.

Those names stuck and those are the names the Library Lions are known by today:

Patience and Fortitude

Patience guards the south side of the library steps, to the left as you face them.

Fortitude sits unwaveringly to the north.

“Sweet story,” you may be thinking. “But isn’t a bricks-and-mortar building filled with ink-on-paper physical documents an anachronism in the digital age?”

“Isn’t Google scanning the contents of great libraries like this? Won’t a digitized, open-source equivalent soon take its place?”

Yes, but … No doubt the business of books is in turmoil. Book publishing is rapidly evolving. Books have many new forms. Book sellers are a new and different breed. Library hours and services are threatened in municipalities across the country. And the great New York Public Library system the lions represent is not exempt.

But during the Great Depression, many ordinary people, out of work, used this library -- and community libraries philanthropists like Astor, Lenox and Andrew Carnegie encouraged across the nation -- to improve their lot in life.

As they still do. We read and watch various news reports about increased use of libraries during this current economic downturn. It doesn’t come as a surprise to some at The New York Public Library that attendance and circulation are up. Users are seeking information in that special space to help them through tough times and are also using the Library’s collections and programs as ways to escape from it all.

Look at it this way: While the library the lions protect is packed with millions of volumes, many unique and costly, it’s not necessarily the books themselves that have the greatest value.

A sense of place still has its place. I’d like to suggest that access – in a public space, with likeminded seekers -- to the ideas recorded for posterity and residing there, is what makes libraries most valuable.

TGIM Takeaway:  For many, these days are as “tumultuous” as the LaGuardia era. While I hope the extreme hardships of the so-called Great Depression are not the case with any TGIM readers, Patience and Fortitude will continue to Support and Inspire individuals, families, businesses, institutions, political parties, and even nations through the eventful days ahead.

This library – all public libraries – are –

The People’s Palace. A place to Know The Past, Find The Future which, not so coincidentally, is the title of a special publication produced to celebrate the NYPL centennial.

The book (details HERE) harnesses the thoughts of an eclectic assortment of contemporary icons as they ponder an even more eclectic assortment of objects.

From among the Library’s vast collections, these writers, artists, philosophers, scientists, musicians, athletes, architects, choreographers, and journalists—not to mention some of the curators who have preserved these riches—selected an item and describe what it means to them. The result, in words and photographs, is a glimpse of what a great library can be.

Know The Past, Find The Future is available -- at no charge -- at all 90 NYPL locations — WHILE SUPPLIES LAST.

The book is also available -- at no charge -- in an eReader version for download.

TGIM ACTION IDEA: Strive to emulate the qualities for which the Library Lions are named. In the long run, Patience and Fortitude yield Success.

Reading (and writing) “between the lions.”

Geoff Steck
Chief Catalyst
Alexander Publishing & Marketing

8 Depot Square

Englewood, NJ 07631
201-569-5373

tgimguy@gmail.com   

P.S.  On opening day in 1911, the first book requested from the main stacks was Delia Bacon's Philosophy of the Plays of Shakespeare Unfolded. The book, much to the staff's chagrin, was not in the catalog and a staff member donated the book two days later. Fifty years later it was discovered that the interchange had been a setup; the staff member had hoped to generate publicity for the book.

The first book to actually be delivered from the main stacks -- which, even then, contained more than one million books -- a speedy seven minutes after the call slip was deposited, was Nravstvennye idealy nashego vremeni (Moral ideas of our time: Friedrich Nietzsche and Leo Tolstoy) by Nikolai I. Grot.