After eight bookless years, 53rd Street has its library back — if that’s the right word for a sleek but shrunken pit fitted out with bleachers, bar stools, and a megascreen, plus a smattering of circulating volumes. Call it a community center, a public hangout, a computer café, or the library of the future. Whatever the term, library officials would like you to stop thinking of the 53rd Street branch of the New York Public Library as a replacement for the lamented Donnell Library. As the newest of the system’s 89 branches, it looks to the future instead of attempting to repair the past.

Let’s do some remembering anyway. A lot has happened on this block since 2008, when a developer bought and demolished the five-story Donnell building, whose 300,000 books were then scattered to other parts of the library system.  ...  “The way people use our branches has changed,” says Weinshall. “People are relying less on materials and more on programming. They’re spending more time in our locations, and engaging with us in new ways: do a job search, look for an apartment, go online. We have outlets every five inches at 53rd Street.”

The new branch does indeed provide the perfect haven for checking stock prices and Twitter. Patrons can tap and scroll in tranquility, unmolested by the odor of caffeine, the need for a password, the feel of greasy tables, or a barista’s stare. As a place to research a school project or browse for esoteric bedtime reading, on the other hand, it offers dismaying advice: Try elsewhere. Order a book from the website. Download an e-book. 

- Glance in from the sidewalk, and the eye falls on a set of blond-wood terraces that go cascading into a cave, between walls of metal slats and raw concrete. The vibe mixes the slovenly with the dictatorial. On the steps, felt discs — four per row, not really plush enough to qualify as cushions — demonstrate where to place one’s behind, but in the end most people sprawl or hunch. Neither is especially comfortable. This narrow buried amphitheater gives library patrons a split-level vista: above, a rat’s-eye view of the street and passers-by; below, a wide screen playing a promotional slideshow for New York and its libraries. Architects love choreographing such chance urban spectacles, but this one enjoys a special kind of pointlessness. © Justin Davidson