The Donnell Library Center was a branch of the New York City Library at 20 West 53rd Street just north of Rockefeller Center

Rockefeller Center

Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering between 48th and 51st streets in New York City, United States. Built by the Rockefeller family, it is located in the center of Midtown Manhattan, spanning the area between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. It was declared a National...

. It closed as of August 30, 2008.

The library was famous for housing the collection of the original Winnie-the-Pooh

Winnie-the-Pooh

Winnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear, is a fictional anthropomorphic bear created by A. A. Milne. The first collection of stories about the character was the book Winnie-the-Pooh , and this was followed by The House at Pooh Corner...

 dolls including Pooh's friends Kanga, Eeyore

Eeyore

Eeyore is a character in the Winnie-the-Pooh books by A. A. Milne. He is generally characterized as a pessimistic, gloomy, depressed, anhedonic, old grey stuffed donkey who is a friend of the title character, Winnie-the-Pooh....

, Tigger

Tigger

Tigger is a fictional tiger-like character originally introduced in A. A. Milne's book The House at Pooh Corner. Like other Pooh characters, Tigger is based on one of Christopher Robin Milne's stuffed animals...

 and Piglet

Piglet (Winnie the Pooh)

Piglet is a fictional character from A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh books. Piglet is Winnie-the-Pooh's closest friend amongst all the toys/animals featured in the stories...

 behind Bulletproof glass

Bulletproof glass

Bulletproof glass is a type of strong but optically transparent material that is particularly resistant to being penetrated when struck by bullets, but is not completely impenetrable. It is usually made from a combination of two or more types of glass, one hard and one soft...

 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 Nathan Straus

Nathan Straus

Nathan Straus was an American merchant and philanthropist who co-owned two of New York City's biggest department stores – R.H...

 Young Adult Center.

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

Indiana Limestone

Indiana Limestone, also known as Bedford Limestone is a common regional term for Salem limestone, a geological formation primarily quarried in south central Indiana between Bloomington and Bedford....

. It was designed by Edgar I. Williams and Aymar Embury II

Aymar Embury II

Aymar Embury II was an American architect. He is best known for commissions from the City of New York from the 1930s through to the 1950s. In this period, Embury frequently worked with Robert Moses in the latter's various city and state capacities, especially, early on, in Moses capacity of Parks...

. The formal name carved in the limestone above the entrance was "The Donnell Free Circulation Library and Reading Room."

Winnie the Pooh

In the 1940s Pooh author A. A. Milne

A. A. Milne

Alan Alexander Milne was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work.-Biography:A. A...

 donated the dolls to the American publisher E. P. Dutton

E. P. Dutton

E. P. Dutton was an American book publishing company founded as a book retailer in Boston, Massachusetts in 1852 by Edward Payson Dutton. In 1986, the company was acquired by Penguin Group and split into two imprints: Dutton Penguin and Dutton Children's Books.-History:Edward Payson Dutton founded...

. The dolls were then donated to the library in 1988.

In 1998 British Member of Parliament Gwyneth Dunwoody

Gwyneth Dunwoody

Gwyneth Patricia Dunwoody was a British Labour Party politician, who was the Member of Parliament for Exeter from 1966 to 1970, and then for Crewe from 1974 to her death in 2008...

 urged that the dolls be returned to the British Parliament after saying she “detected sadness” in the inanimate objects.

The Americans then dug in their heels with Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani coming to their defense.

The mayor, after the visiting the library, and holding the bear with a group of children proclaimed in a "leaked" conversation that the bear told him "I want everyone in Britain and America to know that we're very, very happy here in New York City" and that it had also lauded the city's drop in crime and thought New York "capital of the world."

Other politicians were to join the fray with Congressman Nita M. Lowey proclaiming "The Brits have their head in a honey jar if they think they are taking Pooh out of New York City."

Mike McCurry, spokesman for Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...

 proclaimed "As the President indicated to some of us, the notion that the United States would lose Winnie is utterly unbearable."

According to the New York Public Library's web site, the dolls "have recently moved from their previous home in the Central Children's Room to grand new quarters in the History and Social Science Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street and will be on display in the Children’s Room beginning in early 2009."

Future plans

The five-story Library located between Rockefeller Center (which it resembles architecturally) and the Museum of Modern Art

Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...

 across 53rd Street (Manhattan)

53rd Street (Manhattan)

53rd Street is a midtown cross street in the New York City borough of Manhattan, that contains buildings such as the Citicorp Building. It is 1.83 miles long. The street runs westbound from Sutton Place across most of the island's width, ending at DeWitt Clinton Park at Eleventh Avenue...

 has long been considered a target for development given its low rise location amidst the Midtown Manhattan

Midtown Manhattan

Midtown Manhattan, or simply Midtown, is an area of Manhattan, New York City home to world-famous commercial zones such as Rockefeller Center, Broadway, and Times Square...

 skyscrapers.

In November 2007 Orient-Express Hotels Ltd. which owns the 21 Club

21 Club

The 21 Club, often simply 21, is a restaurant and former prohibition-era speakeasy, located at 21 West 52nd Street in New York City.-Environment:...

 directly south of the library announced an agreement to raze the library and replace it with an 11-story hotel. The Library, which would be relocated during the building phase from 2009 to 2011 would then occupy the first floor and two subterranean floors in the new structure and would have a separate entrance from the hotel.

The library was vacated in the summer of 2008. In March 2009, Orient Express announced it was backing out of the agreement.

In October 2011 demolition began on the building after Orient sold the building to Tribeca Associates and Starwood Hotels which plans to erect a $400 million hotel/condo complex with a library which is contractually to open by June 30, 2014.