The New York Society Library

History and architecture

The New York Society Library occupies a mansion of exceptional architectural character and distinction. This five-story limestone structure in the Italian Renaissance Style has great dignity. Trowbridge and Livingston, architects, many structures of outstanding merit in New York City, completed this mansion in 1917 for the John S. Rogers family.

The New York Society Library was started in 1754, more than a hundred years before the New York Public Library was consolidated. A half dozen public-spirited New Yorkers convinced Lieutenant Governor DeLancey to designate a room in City Hall to be used for that purpose. In 1772 the Library received a charter from King George III which still exists among the Library's treasures. The Legislature confirmed this charter in 1789, and the Common Council voted the Society the use of a room in Federal Hall. As the first Continental Congress was then meeting in Federal Hall and as it used the Library, the New York Society Library may in a certain sense be referred to as the first Library of Congress. The names of George Washington, John Adams, Alexander Hamilton and many others connected with our country's early history were inscribed in the charging lodger for books.

By 1793, the Library had expanded to five thousand volumes and so the Society constructed a building on Nassau Street. They moved to a second location at the corner of Broadway and Leonard Street in 1840, when they combined with the New York Athenaeum, a literary and scientific club of the day. Aa their collection increased to thirty-five thousand volumes by 1856, it became necessary to build a larger building on University Place. Here they remained for eighty-one years, or until 1937, when they moved to their present quarters.

The mansion the Society now occupies was a residence until 1937 when a generous bequest from the estate of Mrs. Charles C. Goodhec provided funds for the Society to purchase the building. Another large bequest in 1952 put the Library on a sound financial foundation. Modest subscription rates are still maintained for the membership, and the Library is open to public use, although only subscribers may take books from the premises.