In the Old Astor Branch

FAMOUS AUTHORS HAVE WORKED IN ITS QUIET ALCOVES.

Nucleus of Building Now Closed Was Given by John Jacob Astor Sixty Years Ago — It Has Associations For Many a Worker and Some Who Slept — Memories of Fifty Years.

Now that the new building of the New York Public Library is ready to receive visitors, the last stage of the function of usefulness as a home of books has been completed for the brownstone structure on Lafayette Street which for many years was the home of the Astor branch. It is a dingy old building, ill-lighted and badly ventilated, but there are many indeed of the old readers and students who think sadly of the change to the marble halls of the city's new palace of literature.

There they will find no quaint corners and alcoves nestling in amid towering shelves of books, musty with old leather, but fragrant with the memory of the names of famous men of letters who worked there in the days of long ago: Longfellow, Emerson, Dickens, Hawthorne, Bancroft, Holmes, Greeley, and many another famous name. The rollcall of those who have visited the Astor Library reads like a brief synopsis of the history of the past fifty-seven years, and the visitors have ranged from Emperor to inventors of the first flying machine. There are such varied names as the Prince of Wales, who was to become England's King. Edward VII; Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brasil; Wilbur and Orville Wright, Prince Napoleon, Theodore Roosevelt, merely to choose a few at random.

Gayly decorated with flags and bunting, the Astor Library saw the Seventh Regiment assemble before its doors to march away to the civil war, almost exactly fifty years ago. It saw the return of the soldiers when the long struggle was ended. One by one it saw the residences and lawns about it yield to the steady northern march of trade. It saw the green fields to the north vanish in the murk of towering buildings and factory smoke. It saw New York grow to be the second greatest city in the world. It is only natural that a building with such a history should have gathered about itself a little cluster of traditions and a following that has become almost part of those traditions.

VETERANS FROM OLD ASTOR.

The library authorities were wondering the other day how many of the veterans would follow the books up to Fifth Avenue. The students will follow, of course, but what will the traditional Astor Library "sleeper" do when his old familiar haunts are closed to him? To look down on the Astor reading-rooms in the crowded hours was as good a study of human nature as one would want to find. There one could see humanity in every aspect. Men, women, and children, students young and old, East Side foreigners of every nation, eagerly poring over books in the language they had just learned: the spectacled schoolma'am, the shaggy-haired inventor with his pile of formidable scientific works, the genealogist digging through family histories, the white-haired, broken-down scholar dreaming over his book, the "sleeper" huddled down over a magazine, never turning a page, but warm and comfortable as compared to his usual post on a park bench.

There are Astor sleepers who have become almost institutions. Sleeper is a misnomer, as a matter of fact, for they are not permitted to sleep. So long as a man is sober, reasonably clean in his person, and quiet and orderly in his behavior, there is no way for the authorities of a public library to prevent him from loafing in the reading-rooms to his heart's content. But your true loafer enjoys nothing so much as a quiet catnap, and this is when the library authorities can and do act. A nudge in the elbow is the first warning, with a whispered word that the Ilbrary is not a place for dosing. The sleeper awakes with a start and begins hastily to turn over the leaves of his book or magazine. As the librarian passes on the sleeper shades his face in his hand, gradually he huddles lower and lower down over the table, and then a prolonged snore is apt to be the signal for the librarian's return, and the sleeper is once more awakened and requested to leave.

Usually the sleepers go quietly, perhaps grumbling a little, when requested to depart. But the oldtimers, the practised veterans, can alt for hours, never turning over a leaf, erect enough to pass muster, eyes shaded by hands, and in reality enjoying a series of dozing nape. They are mostly very old, these veteran sleepers, men past the ability to earn a living, and it often seems a little pitiful that men of this type should have to descend to such subterfuge merely to have a warm place to dream away their last days.

In the summer time, of course, the sleeper is very little in evidence — he finds the park bench more comfortable then. In vacation days, however, the Astor was always kept pretty busy with college teachers and professors from the South and West, who visited the library to do reference work there.

Regret at leaving the Astor Library is rather more a matter of sentiment than anything else, for the old building is stuff, ill-ventilated, badly lighted and overcrowded. The new building will be an infinitely better and healthier place to work in, and the real students whose necessities a reference library answers will be pleased enough at the change.

ESTABLISHED IN 1854

The move to the new building in which the Astor and Lenox libraries are combined by means of the Tilden Foundation is probably the most important step in the long and interesting history of the Astor since it was established in 1854. After John Jacob Astor had retired from business he had under contemplation for a long time a plan to use $400,000 of the money he had made to establish a memorial of some sort for the benefit of the city in which he won his great fortune. He appears at first not to have decided upon a library, but to have been advised to use his money for this purpose by friends, who included the following men later named in his will as officers or trustees: Washington Irving, Daniel Lord, Dr. Joseph B. Cogswell, Henry Brevoort, Samuel Ward, James G. King, Samuel B. Ruggles, and Fitz-Greene Halleck.

It is said that Mr. Astor was not at first particularly enthusiastic over the plan of using his money for a library, but that later he became so much interested in it that he devoted most of his time to planning for the library in the later years of his life. In 1843 Dr. Cogswell was appointed librarian and a short time afterward the site of the first building was bought for $25,000. Mr. Astor died in 1848, before actual work was begun on the building, but in his will he left $400,000 for the library, $130,000 for books, $75,000 for the erection of the building, and the balance as an endowment fund. It was found that this will had been made in 1839, and appointed Washington Irving president of the library, Daniel Lord treasurer, Dr. Cogswell librarian, and the other friends and advisers named above trustees. His son, William B. Astor, and his grandson, Charles Astor-Braisted, were also made trustees by the will. He also bequeathed his own library, and while the building was being erected these books were put at the disposal of the public in temporary quarters at No. 32 Bond Street.

Dr. Cogswell went abroad while the building was being erected between 1850 and 1854, and began the purchase of books to such good effect that when the library was opened to the public with much ceremony on January 9, 1354, it contained more than 80,000 volumes.

When Dr. Cogswell was forming the Astor Library he had definite ideas as to the character of the collection about to be created. In the third annual report of the library (1852) he stated his position at some length, maintaining that the purpose of the founder and of the trustees was to form a general reference library. This purpose Dr. Cogswell carried out so well that it is safe to say the reader is fairly certain to find in the library the fundamental basic works in any of the departments of knowledge that had a recognized literature at that time.

GAVE BOOKS, TOO.

Appreciating, however, that if any department was to approach completeness it must be by individual effort, he made the first step by presenting to the library several thousand bibliographical works he had collected as aids in forming it. In 1853 William B. Astor gave $12,500 for the purchase of technical works, which sum he increased largely by subsequent gifts. In consequence of this early encouragement and of wise selection in later years the department of industrial art can exhibit a well-chosen collection of the most important works in its field; though not one of the largest departments in point of numbers, it is one of the best balanced in regard to the character of its books.

When Washington Irving died in 1859 William B. Astor, the son of the founder, succeeded as president. He had already in that year given the library the first addition, in which the main entrance is now situated. The addition was practically the same as the first building in plan and architecture. The second addition was presented by John Jacob Astor, the founder's grandson, in 1881. This addition was also practically identical with the first two buildings. William B. Astor in his lifetime gave some $500,000 to the library, besides presenting it many valuable books. Other members of the family have also made gifts at various times.

During the administration of William B. Astor as president and Dr. Cogswell as superintendent the library grew rapidly in reputation, number of volumes, and endowment, and many famous American authors did much literary work in the alcoves of the Astor at this time. They were given what was known as the "alcove privilege," having a quiet corner to themselves where they could read and write. In recent years the crowding in of additional shelves has made it practically impossible to give authors this privilege, although the library authorities tried to provide as far as possible a quiet place for such work.

Among the present-day authors and other persons of prominence who have done much of their work in quiet nooks of the Astor Library are Rear-Admirals Mahan and Chadwick, Lloyd Osbourne, Edwin Markham, Robert W. Chambers, Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, Nikola Tesla, Ida Tarbell, General Curtis, E. B. Vedder, the artist, Justice Seabury, and many others.