HDC’s 2024 Landmarks Lion Michael S. Hiller handles the lion’s share of preservation law on behalf of preservationists in New York City. In this series of case studies, we’ll look back at some of his most celebrated efforts to save some of New York’s beloved places.
Our First Installment: NYPL!
In 2013, SuperLawyer Michael S. Hiller joined the fight led by the Committee to Save NYPL and others to stop the New York Public Library’s destructive remodeling project. At the time, the Library had planned to demolish the stacks in the Central Branch on 42nd Street – which not only hold the library’s renowned collection, but also support the Rose reading room above them.
In response to this calamitous plan, which removed more than 3 million books and other materials from the stacks, a coalition of scholars, writers, readers, architects, and activists – including Citizens Defending Libraries, joined Michael Hiller to take on the Library in New York State court.
This was a preservation battle for the ages. In fact, New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman told New York Magazine that the plan, if consummated, “will be considered one of the calamities of the city’s history, along with Penn Station,” comparing the Library plan to New York’s original architectural sin.
In order to save the city’s foremost research facility, Michael turned to research and unearthed a 1978 Agreement between NYPL, New York City and New York State that required prior consent from the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) before any structural alteration could be made to the library’s 42nd Street Central Branch. Under that agreement, NYPL and the City also each promised “to protect and preserve the historical integrity of features, materials, appearance, workmanship and environment” of the Central Library, a promise Michael argued that “they would break if the stacks were to be removed.” In addition, Michael’s firm unearthed three trust indentures from mid-19th Century New York, each of which required that the books that would have been relocated to New Jersey were gifted to the NYPL upon the express condition that they never be removed. The arguments persuaded Mayor de Blasio to withdraw his support for the plan, and the stacks remained. Thanks, Michael!
Fittingly, this story of the fight to save the library became a book. In 2015, the reporter Scott Sherman published Patience and Fortitude: Power, Real Estate, and the Fight to Save a Public Library. In the book, Sherman calls Michael a “pugnacious Manhattan litigator.” You can check out a copy from the Library here, and get your tickets to the Lion here!
Photo by Mateusz Walendzik from Pexels