All Brooklyn Public Library locations will be closed for Memorial Day Weekend from Saturday, May 25th through Monday, May 27th.
Good news! Coney Island and Gerritsen Beach libraries will reopen this fall after extensive renovations due to Hurricane Sandy. See our Hurricane Sandy Renovations page for updates.
The New Lots branch began its life in 1942 as a community library organized by the Women's Club of the East New York. In 1949 the Brooklyn Public Library took on the responsibility of serving the community, and in December of that year a branch opened in a rented store at 847 New Lots Avenue. By 1957 it was clear that the community needed a more spacious building. A new two-story structure of 25,629 feet designed by Pomerance and Breines replacing the storefront opened on September 9, 1957. The branch is thought to lie on the site of a cemetery in which soldiers of the Revolutionary War, English officers and African-American slaves may have been buried.
The New Lots building provides a contrast in levels and textures by extending the entrance lobby a little forward of the building line, and setting the door in the wall faced with a polished stone composition. An exhibit case is set into this wall, and the name of the library mounted above it.
The New Lots branch looks forward to serving this vital community into the 21st century, through its information resources and innovative programming.
In 1740, the first schoolhouse was built on New Lots and Schenck Avenues.
