From the NY City Landmarks Preservation Commission Study that Designated the Tottenville Branch a NY City Landmark, 1995) [Section 3 of 8] 

New York Public Library and Andrew Carnegie

The New York Public Library, a private corporation providing library services under contract to the City of New York, is the product of an amalgamation first of several privately-owned libraries and, later, various free circulating libraries. The consolidation in 1895 of the excellent research facilities of the privately-owned Astor and Lenox Libraries (founded respectively by the will of John Jacob Astor in 1849 and by the famous book collector and philanthropist James Lenox in 1870) and the Tilden Trust (established in 1886 by the will of former governor of New York Samuel J. Tilden) formed the basis for the Reference Department. Meanwhile, the New York Free Circulating Library, established in 1878, incorporated two years later, and aided by public funds beginning in 1887, was supported initially by wealthy New Yorkers such as Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jacob H. Schiff and Henry G. Marquand, who were interested in encouraging the self-education of the poor and aiding the underprivileged. In 1901 the Free Circulating Library, which had grown to include eleven branches, was incorporated with several smaller free circulating libraries in the city to form the Circulation Department of the New York Public Library (now the Branch Libraries System). 

The Library branch system, which serves the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island, owes most of its development to industrialist Andrew Carnegie, the exemplar of the self-made man. His philanthropic philosophy was spelled out in two articles published in 1889 in the North American Review and later reprinted as the title essay of his book, The Gospel of Wealth and Other Timely Essays (1901). Carnegie’s aim, “to help those who would help themselves,” would be achieved through “a free library…provided the community will accept and maintain it as a public institution, as much a part of the city property as it public schools, and, indeed, an adjunct to these.” As early as 1881 he had donated a library to his native town in Scotland and later to Pittsburgh and other Pennsylvania communities. In New York, where he had lived since 1867, he served on the board of the Free Circulating Library beginning in 1893 and assisted in money-raising campaigns. In 1901 he sold his steel company to J.P.Morgan and began seeking a substantial philanthropy to which he could direct his attention and his wealth. Following the guarantee that the Public Library and the Free Circulating Library would merge, as Carnegie had advocated, he pledged $5.2 million for the establishment in New York City of sixty-five library branches (divided among the New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library, and Queens Borough Library) to cost $80,000 each. For the three boroughs it served,  the New York Public Library would construct and equip the libraries with the Carnegie funds and operate them as free circulating libraries on lease from the city, which would maintain the properties. In November 1901, the New York Public Library agreed that architectural services for the anticipated buildings would be provided by three highly prestigious firms: Babb, Cook & Willard; McKim, Mead & White; and Carrere & Hastings. Carrere & Hastings received contracts for all four Carnegie libraries built on Staten Island. It was agreed that the Carnegie branches would embody a distinctive type, uniform in design, materials, general characteristcs, and scale; the resulting buildings were of superior architectural quality. Eventually Carnegie’s unprecedented beneficence totaled $65 million for approximately 2,900 libraries in the English-speaking world. 

PDF of report available at: www.neighborhoodpreservationcenter.org