In December, 1788, a meeting of the proprietors was called, trustees were elected, and the library again resumed operations.
The library was kept in a room in the Federal Hall in Wall Street and was used as the library of Congress. The first building put up for its use was on the corner of Nassau and Cedar streets in 1795, but the growth of the city compelling a change, a new building was erected in 1840 on the corner of Broadway and Leonard Street. The Library has occupied the present building in University Place since May, 1856.
The membership of the library has been from the start among the most prominent and respectable citizens. Many of the original shares of 1754–58 have remained in the same families to the present time, as those of the Auchmuty, Banyer, Beekman, Clarkson, Cruger, De Peyster, De Lancey, Harrison, Jones, Keteltas, Lawrence, Livingston, Ludlow, McEvers, Morris, Ogden, Robinson, Rutherfurd, Smith, Stuyvesant, Van Horne, and Watts families; and from 1790–96 those of the Astor, Bailey, Barclay, Bowne, Coles, Delafield, Fish, Gelston, Greenleaf, Jay, Kemble, Kingsland, Lenox, Low, Lee, Le Roy, Oothout, Peters, Prime, Ray, Remsen, Roosevelt, Sackett, Schermerhorn, Schieffelin, Swords, Titus, Townsend, Van Zandt, Van Wagenen, Van Rensselaer, Verplanck, Waddington, Winthrop, and Woolsey families.
Cruger House
Many old New Yorkers remember the Cruger house in Fourteenth Street about halfway between Sixth and Seventh avenues, when it was occupied by the late Mrs. Douglas Cruger.[21]
The house, having a frontage of seventy-five feet, stood in the middle of a courtyard extending on either side about one hundred feet, separated from the street by a high wall. Now the courtyard has disappeared and the house, crowded closely on both sides by high buildings, seems completely dwarfed. Decorated with fire escapes and signs it has fallen from its high estate, and the whole street, formerly a quiet dwelling street, is now nearly given over to trade and noisy bustle. The entrance hall, twenty-five feet in width, extended from front to rear eighty-five feet, a wide staircase rising from the center at the end, the conservatory at the rear being of the width of the house. The rooms on either side were rather curiously divided, losing somewhat in what might have made a more imposing effect, not, however, enough to prevent their being an excellent place for the disposition of the collection of the Metropolitan Museum, which leased the house in 1873 for five years. The house is described in the annual report for that year as a “large and elegant building surrounded by spacious grounds, upon which grounds new galleries may be built, should they be required....”[22] The rooms certainly had more unobstructed light than could be found in most private houses. It is now occupied by the Salvation Army.