HOFFSTACK IN THE STACKS - Manhattan, Ottendorfer Library
One of the city's most gorgeous exteriors, in an always exciting neighborhood.
LIBRARY VISIT #2
I have never lived in New York City’s East Village. Even when I was at N.Y.U. I was always in the West Village. I like to visit the grime, not wallow in it. However, during my more ramblin’ years, the area near the New York Public Library’s Ottendorfer Library, on 2nd Avenue just north of St. Mark’s Place, would definitely count as my stomping grounds. The late night meals at Yaffa Café, drinks at McSorely’s and The International, egg creams at Gem Spa, awful rock bands at Continental and better jazz at what was once the Five Spot but kept changing names during the 1990s … this is definitely representative of my youth!
There were, I confess, times I drank malt liquor out of a paper bag and then threw up, all within a stone’s throw of this marvelously decorated building. This is what one does, I suppose.
The Ottendorfer Library is half of a marvelous brick structure that was built in the mid-1880s, a gift of publishing magnate Oswald Ottendorfer. At the time, the neighborhood was Kleindeutschland—with a large German immigrant population. Soon Yorkville uptown would draw many from that group away, and this area would get much more polyglot, particularly with Jews from all over Eastern Europe. Indeed, this stretch would soon become known as the Yiddish Rialto, and the Village East Cinema—an okay place to see new movies but a great place to see 35mm repertory titles—still has six-pointed stars all over the place if you look closely enough.
The larger chunk of the building was constructed as a hospital for the German immigrants, the German Polyklinik, which became the Stuyvesant Polyclinic by 1910. The library section was the second branch of the New York Free Library (which eventually merged into the NYPL), but it was conditional, at first, that half the volumes inside be German. It still says Freie Bibliothek u. Lesehalle on the exterior.
Back in the day this was a lending library for the poor, but the poor weren’t allowed to wander the stacks on their own. Let’s not get crazy, here. When it transferred into the hands of the NYPL it was one of the 32 branches that had a librarian’s residence on the top floor. Living in a library is maybe one notch below lighthouse keeper for romantic digs, as far as I’m concerned. The hospital is now office space, and includes the feminist co-working space The Wing that was a big deal for a while.
The library and the former hospital have separate entrances now. The exterior of this structure and the bones of the interior are still breathtaking, but the rest of the inside … I’m not gonna lie! I have some notes. Let’s go to the HOFFSTACK IN THE STACKS FAST FACTS!
Borough: Manhattan
Branch: Ottendorfer Library
Address: 135 Second Avenue
Closest Subway: 6 to Astor Place
Secondary Subway: R/W to 8th Street
Can you feel the subway rumble from time to time while seated at a desk? No.
Is there an easily findable copy of Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote? No!
Does the computer system say there is supposed to be a copy of Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote there? No.
Was there something else that caught your eye in the Classic Lit section? Yes. Not one, not two, but three copies of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces.
The exterior is so nice. Is there anything olde timey about the interior? Well, kinda. The racks are iron and there is a second level, but they are empty. I’m sure the Nanny State disallowed any use there because one nitwit intentionally fell and sued. Wasted space. There’s also a cool clock on the wall.
This looks nice, why are you dissin’ on the Ottendorfer? Listen, these photos don’t really evoke the horrible lighting scheme of the main reading room. Also, there was a bit of a bad vibe in there. In a short span of time two people made phone calls at full voice (and were eventually asked to stop by security) and several people were just conked out asleep. One fella across from me at the table was reading a very worn copy of the Holy Bible and making exclamations. I’m glad he was engrossed in his reading, but this is the type of behavior that, when I see it on the subway, I get up and move. Also, even though the children’s section is up a very long flight of stairs, there was a kid screaming his lungs out nonstop. I had to turn up my headphones to the maximum level.
I see. Well, how about the bathrooms? NOT VERY WELL VENTILATED.
Did you need to use one? Indeed.
When you say use, do you mean use? Reader, it’s true. Though this is only the second HOFFSTACK IN THE STACKS dispatch, I must report that I did indeed answer the most urgent of nature’s calls.
You dropped anchor at the Ottendorfer? I dropped anchor at the Ottendorfer.
Was it gross in there? You take a look.
Okay, that’s not so hot, but it isn’t terrible. There was no place to hang my bag or my coat.
Oy. What did you do? Don’t ask. But that’s not the worst part. The toilet barely worked. I had to flush three times.
I don’t believe you. I offer this graffiti as evidence.
Your honor, if it please the court, I offer Exhibit A in my claim that the toilet doesn’t really work. Did the sink indeed work? Yes.
Did you check out other floors? Yes. The children’s section gets a lot more light. It’s not bad up there. I only stayed for a minute because I always feel like a predator when I am alone in the children’s section.
Is there a computer lab? Yes. And take a look at the lovely route one takes to find it.
You have to have gone the wrong way. Maybe I did.
After a time at the Ottendorfer Library—maybe reading one of three copies of A Confederacy of Dunces—you might be hungry for lunch. Luckily, you are in the heart of the East Village. This was, at one time, the greatest spot in the world for cheap eats, but nowadays everything is either a godawful chain or super expensive. Except, of course, for B&H Dairy, one of the finest time capsules in the world.
I’ve written about this 80-something-year-old landmark before. It’s the place to go for blintzes and/or whitefish. This rainy afternoon I fressed with my good friend and former podcast co-host, the noted author John DeVore, one of America’s most righteous gentiles.
I got lima bean soup, he got hot borscht and we split some latkes. We schmoozed over refilled plastic cups of room temperature tap water. There is no finer way for two borderline-employed writers to spend 3:30 pm to 5 pm than to do this.
I’m hoping the weather turns mild and we get to some more branches in February.
Man! I really wanted to like this place, especially with its early place in NYPL history. That 2nd level stack situation is cool; not surprising it’s inaccessible, though. (Maybe the Bible guy would have been happy up there.)
I dig the East Village, and its connection to Kleindeutschland. Despite the ultimate drabness, thanks for sharing its fascinating history with us!
Surely that copy of Beloved is mis-shelved. They must have other classics by authors between M and T! And I'm a little unsettled to see The Warden to the right of Barchester Towers for obvious reasons.