Secrets of the Stacks
Selected highlights and facts about the beloved New York Public Library courtesy of the Times. A few favorites:
- THE FIORELLO LA GUARDIA IMPACT - La Guardia, New York’s loquacious Depression-era mayor, renamed the famous lions that guard the Fifth Avenue entrance. The mayor decided that Patience and Fortitude — survival qualities essential during a depression — made better sense than Lord Lenox and Lady Astor, especially since both lions are male.
- MENU, PLEASE - The library has 40,000 restaurant menus, the world’s largest collection, dating from the 1850s to the present. It is heavily used by chefs, novelists and researchers; a few years ago, a marine biologist consulted menus from the early 1900s for a study of fish populations.
- CABINET OF CURIOSITIES - The most bizarre item, not counting those skull fragments from Percy Bysshe Shelley in Room 319, has to be Charles Dickens’s favorite letter-opener. The shaft is ivory, but the handle is the embalmed paw of his beloved cat, Bob, toenails and all.
The library also features Truman Capote’s cigarette case, the original Winnie-the-Pooh, hair from Mary Shelley and Walt Whitman, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s slippers on display.
Post Notes
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