From The Hundred Acre Wood To Midtown – Winnie The Pooh in New York

To see one of the most important exhibits at the New York Public Library, skip the main entrance…

…and take the far-less trafficked 42nd Street door:

Once past the metal detector, hang a right down the first corridor…

…and continue on into the Children’s Center.

See that wooden partition in the center of the center of the room? Take a peek inside…

…and you’ll find the New York home of Winnie the Pooh (yes, the actual Winnie the Pooh!) and all his friends!

I first wrote about the Winnie the Pooh exhibit in 2009, shortly after the beloved stuffed animals had been moved from their former home at the Donnell Library Center to the main branch of the NYPL. At the time, their new home was a bit, er, lacking…

I’d completely forgotten about the post until a month when, out of the blue, author Neil Gaiman linked to it on his Twitter asking “Is the Winnie the Pooh room at the library still this sad?” All of a sudden, the NYPL was the subject of hundreds of angry tweets and retweets about their treatment of Pooh – a big mistake, since the room had since been given a thorough overhaul!

So in the interest of setting the record straight, I wanted to revisit Pooh’s home in New York City.

The star of the show is of course, Winnie The Pooh…

…the very teddy bear once owned and played with by Christopher Robin Milne, son of Pooh author A. A. Milne. Christopher was given the Alpha Farnell teddy bear on his first birthday in 1921. Originally named Edward, the bear would later take the name Winnie from a real bear Christopher saw at the London Zoo.

In the mid-1920’s, A. A. Milne began writing poems and stories about Christopher and his friends, which also included little Piglet…

…Tigger!…

…everyone’s favorite mopey donkey, Eeyore…

…and Kanga!

These are the very animals Christopher once played with in Ashdown Forest (inspiration for the Hundred Acre Wood), patches, rips, dirt, and all. Some characters, like Rabbit and Owl, were made up for the stories, while little Roo was lost long ago.

The New York Public Library has nicely decorated the room, with a really cool map on one wall…

…and drawings taken from Pooh artist E. H. Shepard’s work:

Later in his life, Christopher gave his toys to editor E. P. Dutton, who in turn donated them to the New York Public Library. After spending years on display at the 53rd Street branch, they were finally given their rightful home in the Main Branch library in 2009.

Not all are pleased that Winnie the Pooh and friends have wound up in New York City. In 1998, British Member of Parliament Gwyneth Dunwoody visited the dolls and urged that they be returned to the Britain, saying she “detected sadness.”

But, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani soon announced he had a discussion with Pooh, who apparently told him: “I want everyone in Britain and America to know that we’re very, very happy here in New York City.” Mike McCurry, spokesman for Bill Clinton later confirmed: “As the President indicated to some of us, the notion that the United States would lose Winnie is utterly unbearable.”

If you were ever a kid, Winnie the Pooh probably has a special place in your heart, and I promise that seeing the actual dolls is pretty moving. It really is amazing to think that so much happiness came from such little things.

Be sure to visit next time you’re at the New York Public Library – and of course, it’s free!

-SCOUT

PS – One little quibble…What the heck is this doing here??

This, apparently, is Lottie the Otter, a new character devised for Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, a modern “authorized” sequel written in 2009.

Ha, guys, come on. If you’re not going to include a Rabbit or Owl or Roo, you don’t get to add in a character no one has ever heard or cares about. No need for shameless advertising in the New York Public Library!