The 53rd Street Library is a branch of the New York Public Library at 18 West 53rd Street, just west of Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. The library is composed of three floors, including two basement levels, and contains a glass facade. The building is located on the south side of 53rd Street, across from the Museum of Modern Art, and located adjacent to 666 Fifth Avenue to the east. It opened in 2016 as a replacement for the Donnell Library Center, which occupied a building at 20 West 53rd Street. The Donnell Library Center operated from 1955 until 2008, when its building was razed and a 46-story hotel and residential building constructed on the site. Donnell Library Center The Donnell Library Center was a branch of the New York Public Library at 20 West 53rd Street. It closed on August 30, 2008. The library was famous for housing the collection of the original Winnie the Pooh dolls behind bulletproof glass in a display in the Children’s Reading Room. The branch also had the largest New York Public Library circulating collection of materials in languages other than English. It also featured the largest collection in the library system of magazines, hardcover, paperback and recorded books for seventh through twelfth grades in the balcony Nathan Straus Young Adult Center. The auditorium in the basement offered concerts and other cultural events. The library opened in 1955 and cost $2.5 million, including the books. It is named for Ezekial J. Donnell (1822–1896), a cotton merchant who was an early library patron. Its exterior was clad in Indiana Limestone. It was designed by Edgar I. Williams and Aymar Embury II. The formal name carved in the limestone above the entrance was "The Donnell Free Circulation Library and Reading Room." Redevelopment The five-story library, two blocks north of Rockefeller Center, was located across 53rd Street from the Museum of Modern Art, another relatively low-rise mid-block building among many taller Midtown Manhattan buildings along nearby Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. In November 2007 Orient-Express Hotels Ltd. which owns the 21 Club directly south of the library on 52nd Street, announced an agreement to raze the library and replace it with an 11-story hotel. At that time, the library was unable to afford the expense of needed repairs to its elevator and air conditioning systems. The library was vacated in the summer of 2008. The World Languages