NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) — There’s a heat wave across New York City this week, and two New York Public Library branches on Staten Island were forced to close when broken air conditioners kept them from serving as city-designated “cooling centers,” adding to mounting concerns about the future of libraries amid city budget cuts.
Like the shuttered Staten Island locations, library officials said that two Manhattan branches also suffered air conditioning issues on Tuesday, but remained open with the use of large industrial fans.
Libraries are blaming their cooling issues on deferred maintenance costs heightened by city budget cuts, which officials already attribute as the reason behind the cessation of Sunday service across the five boroughs after funding was slashed last year.
“When we are facing such major cuts to our budgets, that is going to impact our ability to stay open and to fix all of these units,” Siva Ramakrishnan, director of young adult programs and services at NYPL, told 1010 WINS.
Officials warn that if cuts continue, more service changes—including library closures on Saturdays—are possible.
“City Hall and the mayor’s office did not make any determination of closing libraries on Sundays,” Mayor Eric Adams told 1010 WINS’ Lane Bajardi on The PM Rush on Friday. “Everyone was looking at efficiencies and the libraries determined how they were going to utilize those efficiencies.”
The library system has been advocating against a proposed $58.3 million in cuts, and two rallies will be held on Sunday morning in Brooklyn and Queens to support keeping libraries funded.
“We’re still in the process of negotiating the budget with the city council, we are extremely comfortable that we’re going to be able to provide the services that the city needs, but we won’t do anything that’s going to impact the safety and the well-being of the people of the city,” Adams said after noting that there are about 500 cooling centers open across the city during the week, and many that continue to be open on the weekends.
Sunday’s pro-library gatherings will occur two days after representatives from New York City cultural institutions—including museums, theaters, concert halls, zoos and botanical gardens—gathered on the steps of City Hall to rally against the $53 million in proposed cuts that are still in place in the Fiscal Year 2024 and 2025 budget.
Cultural institutions and libraries alike argue that their functionality is destabilized by the annual threat of budget cuts, which creates an uncertain future for resources used frequently by New Yorkers of all ages and income-levels.
“This sort of year after year threat of budget cuts that libraries experience really creates a lack of certainty and it just makes it hard to plan for the future,” Ramakrishnan said.
Adams said that while it's easy to say that “it’s just another million here, a million there” when discussing the city’s over $100 billion budget, the costs of the migrant crisis, end of federal COVID-19 dollars and settling of union contracts makes budget finalization more complicated.
“This is the budget dance, it happens every year,” Adams said. “I have so much confidence in Speaker Adrienne Adams and her team and my team here, we’re going to land the plane and everyone is gonna come out fine.”