Bobst Library

Bobst Library

What might seem like a cold, vertical bunker abandoned above ground on the otherwise elegantly-lined Washington Square Park is merely a kind of protective shell for this New York University beehive, the 3.3-million-volume Bobst Library, the crown jewel of the NYU library system. Designed and built by proto-starchitect Philip Johnson (with Richard Foster) in the late sixties and early seventies, the modern athenaeum makes up with its interior space what it lacks from the outside. Much of the space is dedicated to an inviting, meditative open-air atrium, criss-crossed by walkways (which over the last decade have invited suicides by NYU students at an alarming rate). Unfortunately, though it’s the finest research institution south of 42nd street, the Bobst is a private library, closed to the public, though you can pay for second-class access (no computer rights, for instance, or even WiFi).