The plan would consolidate three libraries moving the popular Mid-Manhattan circulating library (just across Fifth Avenue at 40th Street) and the underused Science, Industry and Business branch (in a 34th Street building that runs from Fifth to Madison Avenues) back into the main building to eliminate substantial operating costs.

WSJ: New York Public Library | Undertaking Its Destruction | By Ada Louise Huxtable

"Part of it is buying a dream of eventually owning one of the greatest pieces of real estate of New York, a mansion on Fifth Avenue directly across from one of the better parts of Central Park, " she said.

WSJ: Pieces of a Mansion Puzzle on Block

But walking down Fifth Avenue you have little sense of the hardship faced by millions of people across the country.

FORBES: A walk down Wall Street

As it was, Bridge left Carnegie and made his way down Fifth Avenue from the awe-inspiring, sixty-four-room mansion across from Central Park at 91st Street to an even more imposing structure some twenty blocks south.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Meet You In Hell'