Public Advocate Questions Library Plan to Renovate Fifth Avenue Branch

Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, a Democratic candidate for mayor, at a news conference Friday and in a letter to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, expressed concern about the New York Public Library’s proposed renovation of its Fifth Avenue flagship.

“These plans seemed to have been made without any forethought to the building’s historical and cultural integrity,” Mr. de Blasio said at the news conference at City Hall Friday morning. “We need to ensure that a detailed financial audit and review is conducted, so that these renovations won’t exceed the $300 million proposed.”

The library’s plan to replace the research stacks with a circulating library that will integrate the operations of the Mid-Manhattan Library has been challenged in two lawsuits this month by scholars and preservationists. Under the proposal, known as the Central Library Plan, the Mid-Manhattan branch will be sold and closed, along with the Science, Industry and Business Library, whose operations will also be absorbed into the renovated building.

In a statement Friday, Neil Rudenstine, the library’s chairman, responded to the lawsuits and defended the project.

“While I do not doubt that those in the scholarly community who have criticized this plan share a passion for NYPL’s mission, the opponents fail to acknowledge that the problems that the renovation seeks to solve demand urgent action,” Mr. Rudenstine said. “This plan will generate funding to provide more books, librarians and programs.”

Mr. Rudenstine said the renovation was necessary because the books in the stacks and the Mid-Manhattan library, the system’s busiest branch, were both deteriorating.

Mr. Rudenstine was named as a defendant in a lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court on Wednesday by a group of prominent writers and scholars. A separate lawsuit was filed the week before in the same court by the nonprofit group Advocates for Justice on behalf of five preservationists and scholars.

A lawyer for the scholars who filed suit on Wednesday, Michael S. Hiller, responded to Mr. Rudenstine, saying that his “cheerleading comments about the Central Library Plan only serve to reinforce that he doesn’t really understand it or its implications.”