The building is clear, but who will pay for it remains murky.
Brooklyn Public Library admitted last week that it is struggling to raise
enough money to build a chic — and expensive — Visual and Performing
Arts Library at Flatbush and Lafayette avenues in Fort Greene.
Designed by architect-of-the-moment Enrique Norten, the slinky, all-glass,
ship-bow-shaped library will cost between $70 and $85 million.
“The biggest question right now is where we will find the money to
build,” said Brooklyn Public Library Executive Director Ginnie Cooper.
To jumpstart the latest fundraising campaign, on Tuesday, the library
had Norten show off tweaks in his well-received design to the library’s
board of trustees.
The project’s glistening architectural benchmarks remain, but now
include more commercial space than the prior version, a revision that
reflects the need for private sources of income to sustain the building’s
costs.
“It is not easy to fund cultural institutions,” said Norten,
“Not only will cafes and shops on the ground floor work financially,
they will bring life to the public space.”
But they can only do that if it gets built — something that appears
to be in serious doubt.
“In a perfect world, we are talking about building in the next four
or five years,” said Cooper. “But we have to find funding first.”
Raising money for projects in Downtown Brooklyn — even ones attached
to a brand-name architect — has proven tricky. And the fund-raising
pitch comes as budget cuts have left Brooklyn’s neighborhood library
branches with limited hours and less-senior librarians.
The library has raised just $18 million of the $85 million it needs to
build Norten’s design. Roughly $10 million has come from the city,
through its financial partnership with the BAM Local Development Corporation,
while another $3 million was given by the City Council and directly from
the Bloomberg adminstration. Another $2 million came from Albany.
Part of Norten’s presentation was simply to remind the library board
of the spectacular qualities of the proposed design.
But he also showed off the increased the amount of inside space devoted
to children and teens. The older kids will lord over their own wing on
an upper-level of the library while children will have a large section
on the library’s main floor dedicated to them. The tweaks did little
to dull the overwhelming enthusiasm for Norten’s design.
“It is very seductive and appealing, but you have to ask some hard
questions about how a project like this will be subsidized and sustained,”
said Marilyn Gelber, executive director of Independence Community Bank
Foundation.
In July, the Foundation gave the Library $500,000 towards a new auditorium
and plaza at the main branch on Grand Army Plaza. But Gelber couldn’t
say if more money was being earmarked for the sexy performance library
— and even questioned the need for such an eye-catching design.
“How does such a gorgeous design contribute to the overall goals
of the library system?” she asked.
“We give regular support to the library, but usually along very basic
operating lines. We give money to buy books, buy space, pay librarians.”
Norten’s latest illustrations also showed the adjacent, Rubik’s
Cube-like Theatre for a New
Audience, a 299-seat playhouse designed by starchitect Frank Gehry
with Hugh Hardy.
Before Tuesday’s discussion about the performing arts library, trustees
asked about progress at the Gehry theater — a project announced nearly
a year ago with much fanfare by Mayor Bloomberg.
“It’s sort of like a done deal,” responded Norten before
Cooper interjected, explaining that the theater is also struggling to
raise money for its building, which is expected to cost a whopping $335.8
million.
“Who knows what will happen there?” Cooper said, rushing onto
the next question.
The new buildings — both part of the $650-million “BAM Cultural
District” — will replace a Brooklyn Academy of Music parking
lot and a nearby gardening store.
Not included in current illustrations is another Gehry addition to the
neighborhood: the 70-story “Miss Brooklyn” skyscraper that Forest
City Ratner plans to erect as part of the Atlantic Yards development,
located just a few blocks south at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic
avenues. .
