advance—and may find, as readers sometimes do here, that real delivery times are slower than advertised ones." After a protracted six-year battle, and two public interest lawsuits, the Central Library Plan was abandoned in May 2014 due to pressure by its opponents and the election of Bill de Blasio as mayor. Subsequently, an $8 million gift from Abby and Howard Milstein helped fund the renovation of the second level of stacks beneath Bryant Park, so that they could be used to store the books. The controversy was damaging to the reputation of not only the library's board, but of its president, Anthony Marx. In a book about the drawn out, often secretive initiatives to sell real estate and remove the heart of a treasured landmark, Scott Sherman concluded that Marx and his wealthy supporters "lacked prudence: they applied radical, free market solutions to complex institutional problems. In the end, elected officials in New York City had to save the NYPL from its own trustees." In May 2014, one of the "gilded-plaster rosettes" in the ceiling of the Rose Main Reading Room fell to the floor. The NYPL closed the Rose Main Reading Room and the Public Catalog Room for renovations. The $12 million restoration project included restoring the rosettes and supporting them with steel cables, as well as installing LED lamp fixtures. The NYPL commissioned EverGreene Architectural Arts to recreate the mural in the Bill Blass Public Catalog Room, which had "suffered irreparable discoloration, overpainting and water damage" during its 105-year history. The NYPL also replaced its historic chain-and-lift book conveyor system with a new delivery system using "book trains". The restored Rose Main Reading Room and Bill Blass Public Catalog Room reopened on October 5, 2016. Starting in August 2017, the Main Branch temporarily hosted an interim circulating library at 42nd Street. The interim library was to hold part of the collection of the Mid-Manhattan Library while the Mid-Manhattan building was closed for renovations, which were scheduled to be completed in 2020. The Mid-Manhattan Branch's collection of pictures was also temporarily relocated to the Main Branch until the circulating library reopened in 2020. In November 2017, the New York Public Library board approved a $317 million master plan for the Main Branch, which would be the largest renovation in the branch's history. The plan, designed by architecture firms Mecanoo and Beyer Blinder Belle, would increase publicly available space by