Long oak tables under bronze lamps, book galleries on the walls, and paintings set into the carved ceiling coffers.
The library's Fifth Avenue building opened on May 23, 1911, designed by Carrere and Hastings. The main reading room is 78 feet wide, 297 feet long and 52 feet high, with painted skies in the ceiling. It was named for the Rose family in 1998 and reopened in 2016 after a two year restoration. The stone lions at the door were named Patience and Fortitude by Mayor La Guardia.
Source · The New York Public Library ↗
Rows of reading tables with bronze lamps, two tier bookcase walls with a gallery, tall arched windows, a gilded coffered ceiling with painted panels. Mood: quiet afternoon. Everything is procedural geometry with painted surfaces; nothing is a scan or a photograph. The room is an interpretation, and it hangs the New Yorkers the census recorded at this place first.