The New York Public Library was created in 1897 by the merger of several private libraries. Among these was the Astor Library, opened in 1854 as the first public library in America. By joining with the Tilden Foundation, a new institution was created that put America at the forefront of the proposition that knowledge should be freely accessible to the general public, and in the very grandest of civic buildings. So in advance of its time was this idea that when the great Swedish architect Gunnar Asplund was appointed to research into the construction of a new public library for Stockholm  in 1920, he sailed to America to conduct his research.  There was no public library in Stockholm at the time and America was more advanced in the building of public libraries than any other country in the world.

The New York Public Library was designed by Carrere and Hastings in 1897. It was built on the site of an old New York City reservoir and completed in 1903. It occupies, with Bryant Park to its West, two city blocks between Fifth and Sixth Avenues and from 40th to 42nd streets. Its main entrance faces Fifth Avenue and aligns directly with 41st street, giving the main entrance a uniquely open perspective. This entrance leads into Astor Hall and consists of three monumental arcuated openings of enormous refinement inside a loggia of Corinthian columns with a decidedly Parisian Beaux-Arts feel that is emphasized by the broad steps, parterre and monumental urns.

In the one hundred years since its construction, significant deterioration of the entrance area had occurred, and the project involved restoration of the entrances, including bronze, marble and wood work. A ramp was built on the steps of the library in order to remove the doors for disassembly, rebuilding and restoration. New bronze pieces for the doors were fabricated in France using traditional sand casting methods and the original quarry was opened for new marble. In addition, the historic monumental bluestone sidewalk was replaced on three sides of the site.

The doors were missing their original monumental door handles, of which one last remaining example existed in a museum case. This piece was used to make new molds and the handles were reinstalled with anti-theft precautions. The design of the pieces consists of snakes curled around fluted circular shafts with heads raised towards a voluptuous central shell, a shell suggestive of a myth of a Birth of Venus.

Later Asplund was to design the doors of the public library in Stockholm with its famous figures of Adam and Eve as door handles. In both cases the idea is that the desire for knowledge is a human condition and that public enlightenment is a civic virtue.