Fifth Avenue's Literary Lion

By Ellie McGrath

Vartan Gregorian rescues the New York Public Library

The 1970s were bitter years for the New York Public Library. Because of budget restraints, the main research library, housed in Carrere and Hastings' magnificent 1911 neoclassical palace at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, which once was open 87 hours a week, could afford to stay open only 43 hours. Rain was leaking through the roof and into the stacks, endangering a number of the library's 6.5 million volumes. New Yorkers looked upon the library, supported for eight decades by a combination of private philanthropy and tax dollars, as a shabby invalid. Even "Patience" and "Fortitude," the majestic marble lions that guard the library's entrance, appeared sooty and defeated.

But today the institution is reclaiming its position as one of the world's great libraries, thanks to a new lion in its president's office. Vartan Gregorian, 50, a pudgy, bearded historian who bears more than a passing resemblance to Patience and Fortitude, came to his post as head of the system's four research and 82 branch libraries in 1981, after eight years as professor, dean and provost at the University of Pennsylvania. Born in Iran, Gregorian is an Armenian American who speaks Russian, Turkish, Persian, French and Arabic in addition to his first language, Armenian. He has a disarming habit of dropping articles like the when he speaks English (a surprise, for instance, "comes out of blue"). Yet he has eloquently convinced New Yorkers that their library, which contains such treasures as a Gutenberg Bible and George Washington's Farewell Address in his own hand, is nothing less than a central force in the preservation and transmission of civilization. Says Gregorian: "This library is as important as any university."

When he was passed over for the presidency of the University of Pennsylvania in 1980, faculty and students staged campuswide protests. His supporters in New York, who range from Mayor Edward Koch to Philanthropist and Civic Leader Brooke Astor, also praise him in what has become an almost monotonously approbative Gregorian chant. Andrew Heiskell, chairman of the New York Public Library and former chairman of Time Inc., says, "Greg has a strange combination of scholarship, energy, drive, salesmanship, enthusiasm and even a certain naivete."

Those qualities have helped Gregorian prevail over what once seemed a nearly hopeless financial morass. When he arrived, the library was balancing its budget not only by cutting back services but by eating into its $80 million endowment. Then Gregorian began stating his case to potential givers. It was both blunt and plain: the library is necessary and therefore it should be supported. "I have never relied on the guilt or vanity of donors," explains Gregorian. "Charity you give out of pity. Philanthropy is for a higher cause."

Perhaps Gregorian's greatest talent has been in putting together a coalition of library boosters that includes politicians, scholars and business leaders. His first convert was Heiskell, who accepted the chairmanship of the library on the condition that he could pick the president. Says Heiskell: "Greg was head and shoulders over everybody else." Brooke Astor, widow of the late Vincent Astor and head of the foundation that bears his name, was so impressed by Gregorian that she put aside many of her other philanthropic projects to devote more time to helping him raise money. In the past three years, the combined efforts of Heiskell, Astor and Gregorian have brought in $34 million in private funds from more than 40,000 donors, including over 1,000 corporations. For the third year in a row, the National Endowment for the Humanities has given the library a matching grant of $2 million or more. The city voted this spring to allocate $11.3 million to expand the 88 miles of stacks underground, and in 1985 total city support for the operating budget will be $50 million (up from $28 million in 1981).

Many of Gregorian's recent achievements are visible. The face of the library's great white marble building has been washed as part of a $44.8 million structural rehabilitation program, which is also restoring the handsome Beaux Arts interior. The central research library is open 57 hours over six days each week; the 82 branches have increased their hours by 40%. The staff is testing a computerized information-retrieval system that will probably go on line for research library patrons within a year. In June the main library reopened its grand exhibition hall, closed for 40 years, with a show on 500 years of censorship. It is the first of many exhibits designed to make available to the general public scholarly texts that ordinarily would be tucked away upstairs. Gregorian has also turned the library into a cultural center for the city by holding literary lunches and dinners that bring together scholars, writers, socialites, philanthropists and professional men and women.

Gregorian is an executive in perpetual motion. On one typical day, he went over his budget, discussed the purchase of a collection of papers of an Irish tobacco merchant, mulled over the acquisition of materials on the missing Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, lunched with film makers who are preparing movies on such American poets as Pound and Eliot, made a fund-raising visit to an accounting firm and attended an evening presentation on black culture at a Harlem branch library. Gregorian, who sees his role as a sort of cultural ambassador, topped off another 14-hour day with a concert at Lincoln Center. Says he: "If you're not there, people think library is not important institution."

Right now, Gregorian is working with the city schools on a pilot project to coordinate branch hours and programs with school offerings. He is also participating in a program to restore and reclaim Bryant Park, a seedy nine-acre enclave behind the library. Says Gregorian: "Three years ago, I was told I was insane to come to library. They said, 'Have you lost your dedication to scholarship?' I told them, 'No, I have refocused it.'" Adds Gregorian fervently: "The greatest threat to liberty is ignorance. The teacher in me will not give up." --By Ellie McGrath. Reported by Jeanne-Marie North/New York

With reporting by Jeanne-Marie North