The Morgan Library will add a public garden to historic museum campus

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The Morgan Library’s $12.5M revamp moves forward

Earlier this year, the historic Morgan Library & Museum announced that it would undertake the first renovation of its Charles McKim-designed landmark building in more than a century. This week, the museum announced what those changes will look like.

The institution has commissioned British landscape architect Todd Longstaffe-Gowan to create a new garden to “reinvigorate” the 36th Street side of the library campus, which is currently occupied by little more than a plain lawn. In addition to adding new greenery to the space, the museum will dig into its collection to add statues to the grounds, including “a large Roman sarcophagus, a Roman funerary stele, and a pair of Renaissance corbels.”

Courtesy of Todd Longstaffe-Gowan

The revamp will also include a new lighting from Tillett Lighting Design Associates, which is intended to make the whole space more visible at night.

The Morgan complex comprises several buildings: The McKim library, which was built in 1906 and is one of the city’s earliest landmarks; an annex, which was built in 1928 on a parcel where Morgan’s own home once stood; the new Madison Avenue-facing entrance, which was designed by Renzo Piano and opened in 2006; and a townhouse on 37th Street, which is now where the museum shop and restaurant are located.

And in other news…

• Bigger hikes for rent-stabilized tenants may be on the horizon.
• Kushner Studios designed a lovely, enormous brewery and taproom in Ridgewood for Evil Twin Brewing.
• The Tompkins Square Park Halloween Dog Parade will happen this year, although it’ll once again be held in East River Park rather than its namesake.
• A 218-unit affordable housing complex in East New York has broken ground.
• City Council member Keith Powers has proposed legislation to make the jails that come after Rikers Island more humane—but the city’s plan to close and rebuild the jail complex just for a high-profile opponent in Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
• And finally, today’s the 50th anniversary of the end of the Myrtle Avenue elevated train, which ran from Downtown Brooklyn into Bushwick and then Queens. It ran for 80 years, but was torn down as subway trains modernized, but its route is now replicated by the B54 bus. A stub of the line still remains in Brooklyn, though:

Jeffrey Bary/Wikimedia Commons