With our foamy little coffees, Stacy Schiff and I have set up at a small, round, metal table under the trees of Bryant Park, the great green oasis that shares a block of midtown Manhattan with the New York Public Library. It’s in that grand building at the other end of the block. Or so one assumes.
“We’re sitting on the stacks,” Schiff announces with a smile and a nod toward the ground. She’s serious. Beneath the walkways and the grass and the squirrels—all the things that make a park—is most of what makes a library. “I’ve been down there twice,” she says. “Crazy. It’s this amazing warren of books. It’s just, like, miles and miles.” This is not only a genuine secret of New York, it’s one Schiff imparts with a particular kind of arch humor, she spent many months researching at the other end of the block.
