Donnell Library Center

The 53rd Street Library is a branch of the New York Public Library at 18 West 53rd Street just across the street from the Museum of Modern Art. It opened in 2016 as a replacement for the Donnell Library Center, which occupied a building at 20 West 53rd Street from 1955 until 2008 when it was closed and the building razed to allow a 46-story hotel/condo complex to be constructed.

The Donnell Library Center was a branch of the New York Public Library at 20 West 53rd Street. It closed on August 30, 2008.

The library was famous for housing the collection of the original Winnie the Pooh dolls behind bulletproof glass in a display in the Children’s Reading Room.

The branch also had the largest New York Public Library circulating collection of materials in languages other than English. It also featured the largest collection in the library system of magazines, hardcover, paperback and recorded books for seventh through twelfth grades in the balcony Nathan Straus Young Adult Center. The auditorium in the basement offered concerts and other cultural events.

The library opened in 1955 and cost $2.5 million, including the books. It is named for Ezekial J. Donnell (1822-1896), a cotton merchant who was an early library patron. Its exterior like other Rockefeller Buildings consists of Indiana Limestone. It was designed by Edgar I. Williams and Aymar Embury II. The formal name carved in the limestone above the entrance was "The Donnell Free Circulation Library and Reading Room."

The five-story Library between Rockefeller Center (which it resembled architecturally) and the Museum of Modern Art across 53rd Street (Manhattan) was long considered a target for development given its low rise location amidst the Midtown Manhattan skyscrapers.

In November 2007 Orient-Express Hotels Ltd. which owns the 21 Club directly south of the library announced an agreement to raze the library and replace it with an 11-story hotel.

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