From the Detroit Publishing Company, “Technology library, the New York Public Library.” dated as between 1910 and 1920. Assuming that’s the main NYPL building at Fifth and 42nd, and it sure looks like it, the building was completed in 1911.
The first thing that jumps out at me is use of the word “technology.” It certainly was in use in the 1910s, but it was much less common than it is today. I would generally expect a library from that era to refer to science and engineering, not technology.
The historicist architectural style partially camouflages this, but we’re looking at some advanced technology in the set-up. First off, we have the cast-iron shelving units that are also structural, partially supporting the mezzanine. This was well-established at that time as an efficient way to build library stacks, but it is still notable.
Per the standards for the era for a library, the room has great natural light, but we also have both ambient and task electric lighting. Twenty years earlier, that would have been remarkable.
Finally, and nearest to my heart, the faux-heavy-timber ceiling is concealing concrete slabs and steel beams. Most likely, some, maybe all, of the smaller fake beams contain real concrete-encased steel beams, and the fake timber girders contain real girders. On more than one occasion, I’ve looked into a ceiling like this and it turns out that every second fake beam contains a real one, and the others are simply plaster in wire lath. Sometimes the whole thing is fake, hung below the structure, and the layout of the steel doesn’t match the layout of the ceiling.
A slightly different topic, but our office library contains a fair number of engineering texts from 1890 to 1910. We probably have copies of some of the same books that are in those stacks.
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