610 Renovations: The Library

With the 2020–2021 school year behind us, we look ahead with hope and optimism. We also do so with an enduring commitment to building a more cohesive school and ensuring its sustainability for today’s and tomorrow’s students.

The School is pleased to resume planning for a multiyear renovation of 610 East 83rd Street. Addressing the needs of our historic schoolhouse has long been the eagerly awaited follow-up to constructing 590, and Brearley will embark on one project at a time, during the summers.

the middle and upper school library

The 610 renovations will start with the library, which will move to the 10th floor, where it will accommodate almost twice as many students than the current ground-floor library. In its new location, the library will be designed with adjustable shelving for the Middle and Upper School’s collection of twenty thousand books and periodicals, two seminar rooms and exhibit areas for student art and works from the School’s extensive archives. The library’s digital collection will remain a key resource as librarians continue to provide girls with online research instruction. The larger space will enable expanded programming in the evening hours, which will be especially helpful for Upper School student collaboration and for those with longer commutes, who can use the time for study before returning home each day.

following projects

After completion of the library, 610 renovations will continue with the art classrooms, which will relocate to the 12th floor and have additional space on the 11th floor for a digital media lab; the cafeteria, which will move to the 1st floor and become a new hub for nourishment and community connection; the lobby, which will be restored to include the original fireplace; and the Assembly Hall, on A- and B-Deck, which will be upgraded to a flexible theater space.

sustainability goals

Environmental sustainability is a priority for 610’s renovation plans and system upgrades, along with adding insulation to the 90-yearold building. Additionally, the School is exploring other opportunities to increase 610’s energy efficiency.

costs

Renovations to 610 will be supported by new philanthropic gifts to the School, and the timing of each project will be contingent upon fundraising. Before we begin work on any project, the majority of the approved budgeted cost must be committed in gifts and pledges and a large portion paid in gifts. This prudent approach will support the 610 renovation effort while safeguarding the School’s other funding priorities, including our leadership position in compensation for faculty and staff and tuition assistance for families with financial need.

progress

We look forward to sharing next steps in this exciting and vital endeavor with you. As part of our campus plan, renovating our 92-yearold building is a transformative opportunity that will further enhance the well-being of our community and advance our academic and co-curricular programs for generations to come.

Right: Stacking diagram of the proposed renovations in 610 East 83rd Street. The projects will occur in phases over the summers, all with an eye to improving the environmental sustainability of the 1929-constructed building.

Next pages: Conceptual rendering of the 10th floor Middle and Upper School library. Along with an increase in space, features of the new library will include natural light and river views. Before- and after-school hours will facilitate individual and group study.

history of the brearley libraries

At 17 West 44th Street, Brearley’s second address, the library collection was initially accessioned, arranged and organized by Bertha Palmer, a teacher of English and history from 1892 to 1903. In many ways, Bertha’s work in the James J. Higginson Library (named for one of Brearley’s founders and a longtime Board member), which eventually came to be known as “a hole completely surrounded by books,” cemented the Library Department’s mission at Brearley, a program that boasts its initiatives in research accessibilities, reading lists and subject collections. Since Brearley’s move to 610 East 83rd Street in 1929, the library has comprised various locations (and identities) over the years. Prior to their current location, the Upper School Library settled on the sixth floor, which kept the name of James J. Higginson (a plaque still hangs in the room now used as meeting space), and the Middle School Library also began on six, next to Upper School’s, then moved to the third floor with the Lower School Library before returning to six to become the Middle and Upper School Library.

In 1977, with Brearley growing out of its library spaces, Kitty Cunningham, the head librarian from 1962 to 1984, began brainstorming ideas for a new library space that could accommodate all the divisions. For the next few years, Kitty and colleagues Susan Fowler and Jacqueline Lochart worked with architects at Smotrich & Platt, library consultant Walter Frankel and Head of School Evelyn J. Halpert to create a library with “more working space for students and faculty as well as office space for the librarians.” In March 1984, with the assistance of Brearley’s all-community “book brigade,” the librarians moved into their new home on the first floor in time to celebrate the institution’s centennial. Nearly 36 years later, Brearley took part in another book brigade when the Lower School Library moved to the School’s brand-new building at 590 East 83rd Street.

The library’s storied history goes beyond the books, for which many donations were provided to help build the collection by James Croswell, Brearley’s second Head of School, and trustees. The Library Department has curated the Lower School Summer Reading List since the 1960s. It once housed audio/visual materials in the Library Office, which included projectors, carousel trays and phonographs as well as a budding archive with files of pamphlets, pictures and other documents. In 2000, the Library Department ran its own newsletter entitled Library News, which detailed new book, audio and video acquisitions as well as online services—further predating its deep discipline in digital database research for today’s Upper School library curriculum and a precursor, perhaps, to today’s Brearley Library Instagram account.

Continuously evolving, both the Lower School and Middle and Upper School Libraries, in response to the restrictions placed by Covid-19, provided pick-up service for books checked out by the community throughout 2020–2021.

Top left and right: Mrs. Higginson (year unknown) and Upper School students (1932) in the James J. Higginson library on the sixth floor. In memory of her late husband, Mrs. Higginson donated to Brearley, among other things, such books as the Oxford Dictionary, the United States Catalog, the Yale Chronicles of America Series and Pageant of America. Above left: the current Middle and Upper School Library in 610; above right: the new Uris Lower School Children’s Library in 590.

check out: faculty and staff favorite books

Eric Antanitus Brian Chu Luigi Cicala Tabitha Core Sidonie Cypher

Christel De La Ossa Terrell Edwards Dale Emmart Jane Foley Fried Cary Gentry

Simone Hamilton Alonzo Handy Jenna Horowitz Noel Lamberty and Ari Medina Marian Lewin

Gail Marcus

Laurie Seminara

Andy Vernon-Jones Jim McDonald

Tanner Smythson

Frances Wheeler Nadia Nobrega

Clayton Squire

Tom Wright Kymari Phillips

Kasie Stark

Lizzy Youngling Kris Santos

Susanna Terrell

Maria Zimmermann