Money can’t buy you love…but it can buy you a library. And if you are billionaire Stephen Schwarzman, founder of the private equity firm the Blackstone Group, it can buy you not just any library, but the main beaux-arts building of the New York Public Library.
Schwarzman’s gift, announced last month, was the largest ever to a cultural institution in New York and in return, the authorities proposed renaming the city’s 98-year-old marble central library building on Fifth Avenue in his honor – as the Stephen A Schwarzman building.
To re-christen the ornate structure, home of the lions Patience and Fortitude, the plan was to carve Schwarzman’s name in five places – twice on plinths at each of the two main entrances and once in a plaque set into the floor of the porch.
But the local community board, which scrutinises planning matters, was unimpressed. It ruled that five carvings were “unreasonable” and out of keeping with a beloved landmark and it only approved three mentions of Schwarzman’s name. Reports from The Telegraph and Guardian UK.
wait ’til he’s shuffled off the mortal coil.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but seems to me naming a public building after someone used to be an honor we as a society reserved for the dead. It’s a practice we should get back to.
I wouldn’t object to the Schwartzman re-naming if this guy was no longer among the living, it’s common and proper for cities to honor prominent citizens of the past. But Schwartzman is still very much alive and probably has many years ahead of him. I suppose we should be grateful some Corporation didn’t try to buy a brand name to stick on the library–“The Wal-Mart Wing of the NYPL”, which would be even more cringe-worthy, but I’d like to see NYPL buck the trend and inform Mr. Schwartzman it will gladly rename the building–after his death. Or he could offer up the name of a deceased relative of some note to honor if he wants the change to happen now.
Probably won’t happen that way, but I can always dream.
schwartzman needs to die…
…before his name commemorates any building. this is another example of nypl selling out to the new robber barons. nypl is in the process of downsizing, by selling off its’ central libraries, and outsourcing it’s labor to private companies. it’s a shame that nobody cares.