New York Public Library - Stephen A. Schwarzman Building

This guide to the New York Public Library's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building follows the two marble lions out front from their 1911 carving by six Italian immigrant artisans, the Piccirilli Brothers, through critics who mocked their look and sculptors who reworked their manes in response. Their story picks up again in the Depression, when Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia gave them new names. The renaming came at a moment when a quarter of the city's workers had no jobs.