The New York Public Library has abandoned its plan to hollow out its central building and eliminate its research stacks. It was undone by critical and public opposition, and possibly by the fact that the whole scheme—for which Sir Norman Foster took home $7.9 million regardless—was structurally unfeasible.

This plan from the New York Public Library to have Sir Norman Foster gut its beloved central building and rework it, getting rid of the pesky "books" there in the process, all in the name of modernization and The People and prudent money-management—Michael Kimmelman, holder of the office of New York Times architecture critic, has reviewed the plan, and he has delivered the verdict, and the verdict is: DEATH. The library and its "celebrity architect," Kimmelman writes, have cooked up a plan for a "money pit," an "Alamo of engineering" that will pointlessly deform a vital and important structure to no good or useful end.