Pull quote: But, in [Edmund] Morris’s objection to the squeaking of sneakers in the marble lobby—he cites this irksome noise as an ominous harbinger of worse things to come if the CLP progresses—there’s a barely suppressed disdain for the idea that anyone (in sandals even!) can and should use all the NYPL has to offer. This is wrong. Among the riffraff might be the next great novelist or cultural critic, someone without a stamp of approval from an institution, but who knows enough to know that he doesn’t know enough—which just might be the most valid intellectual credential of all." - Stephen le Francoeur

People have been wearing sneakers in NYPL Research Libraries since long before 1991 (when I worked there... and I wore sneakers to work some days, too) They've come in barefoot, too, for that matter. The problem with the 'renovation' is the wholesale removal of the structural supports to the building upon which the vast collection of great-to-terrible books resides. - awd