Roosevelt Island NYPL Branch Sees NO Reduction in Days or Hours

In the year that the NYPL almost took back its sixth day of library service, many branches are seeing reduced hours as a trade-off to keeping the sixth open day. But Roosevelt Island has been spared any cut back in hours and has been granted the abilty to not lose any hours for our residents to enjoy our local NYPL branch.

Local Doyle Children Top Readers City Library System

A great story in yesterday's NY Daily News about four local Roosevelt Island siblings who voraciously read books borrowed from local NY Public Library branch. Congratulations kids you are role models for your peers.

May Calendar - NYPL Roosevelt Island Branch

The May calendar of events at the Roosevelt Island branch of the New York Public Library includes not only the familiar book bingo, reading and story time hours for younger and school age children but also classes for 12-18 year olds on how to make their own hats, jewelry, and urban fashion items. For adults the month includes a book discussion focusing on the book Fast Food Nation.

Library Posts Flyers Re Teen Programs

Looking for something for your teen to do on Monday afternoons starting at 4pm? Well the NYPL Roosevelt Island branch has announced a series of programs for teens including video game design, knitting, beading jeans, and making hats.

Back to the Lack of Public Bathroom Issue: Local NYPL Branch in Particular

Now that Related / Hudson has indicated that the last retail space at 425 Main Street is planned for some sort of “food” related tenant it puts to bed some of the rumors that the Roosevelt Island Branch of the New York Public Library will be moving to that space. I now find myself coming back to the need for increased public bathrooms centrally located on the Island.

I first starting making noise on this blog regarding this need, back in August, in regards to the local NYPL branch NOT making available to the public the sole bathroom on their premises. It was hoped that if the NYPL Branch moved to a new space on the Island that access to a public bathroom on the premises would be made available. Currently if a parent has a child needing to go that they either have to run home or go to Trellis and quickly try to descend those slippery worn steps to their bathroom. Running South to the Tram or North to Octagon Park are not options.

The Roosevelt Islander picked up on this same theme in a number of posts and also put forth my suggestion that RIOC apply for one of the planned twenty stand alone public toilets the City intends to construct around the five boroughs. I guess it is time to start making inquiries again. For users of the library it would be so much easier if the bathroom at the library could at least be made available to them.

Perhaps a portion of 504 Main Street once it is converted to the Public Safety offices could be set aside and turned into a publicly accessible restroom. With the public safety officers onsite at least we would be assured that the restrooms would be safe and not used for any illicit purposes. Perhaps when the Charmin toilet paper folks leave their now annual Time Square facilities they could be talked into sponsoring a public lieu here on Roosevelt Island?

NYPL: Roosevelt Island – 9/2007 Update

The NYPL has updated the Roosevelt Island Branch site to note its current hours which added a few extra hours on Tuesdays and Fridays with the branch now opening up at 10am and not at 1pm.

Current Hours:

Of the events scheduled for this month as usual for this branch the “Baby Lapsit / Toddler Time” program repeats every Wednesday at 11am throughout the month. Per the website the reading of “The Hobbit” on 9/27 is being “funded through the Cultural After School Adventure Program by New York City Council Member Jessica S. Lappin and The City of New York.”

Scheduled Events:

Roosevelt Island Branch - NY Public Library - 8/15-8/20

The one of the greatest resources any community can provide its citizenry is a library. As residents of NYC we are lucky enough to have access to one of the greatest library systems in the world. When we moved to island one of the selling points to us was the existence of the Roosevelt Island Branch Library located at 524 Main Street.

The ability to take out books literally from a branch right on our own street was something that was a big deal to us. Now with the branch hours open six days a week the library is even more accessible to everyone.



Over the next several days the library is hosting every day a different program for children ranging from “Reading Aloud” to “Summer Crafts” to “Book Bingo”. The hours and age ranges are noted in the graphic provided here and on the Branch website.



Our branch is quite active and it is rare I have not seen many individuals inside taking advantage of this great gift we are given by NYC.

The only downsides we have are that for a library to adequately serve a community the library needs to grow and ours is bound by the four walls that limits its growth. One factor that mitigates this is the ability to reserve books not kept in our branch’s permanent collection from other branches citywide. Perhaps one day another space would become available that would allow the library to expand not only its current facility but the community as a whole (perhaps the former Lillies School building).

Another downside is that if nature calls one must leave the library as the staff does not make the lavatory available to the public due to either concerns of safety (they store their cleaning agents in the bathroom) or fear that the library would be used simply as a lavatory and create a stream of guests who would not be there otherwise disrupting the library’s primary function.

Overall we have a great resource in our neighborhood branch library and we should all take advantage of it. For it to be granted greater resources I am sure it’s continued and expanded use play major factors. So do better by yourself and stop by and make your voice heard that this is a place that matters to you.