By 1959, the building had become home only to pigeons and rats and was considered such an architectural eyesore the city planned to knock it down and erect an apartment building. But Village community members, led by Margot Gayle and Philip Wittenberg, and including Lewis Mumford, E.E. Cummings (who lived across the street in Patchin Place) and actor Maurice Evans, rallied to save the building from the wrecking ball.

In 1961, Mayor Robert F. Wagner announced that it would be preserved and converted into a public library. The task of converting the old courthouse to a modern library was undertaken by architect Giorgio Cavaglieri, who also adapted the Astor Library into the Public Theatre on Lafayette Street. Construction began in 1965 and the library opened for business in 1967.

Among the first of its visitors was the poet Marianne Moore, who had at one time worked for the Hudson Park Branch Library. She found the renovation very pleasing indeed. Many since have come to share her feeling, knowing that a library is an essential space, allowing one to contemplate privately in public, among a world of ideas.