William D. Walsh Family Library

The story

In 2004, the Princeton Review ranked this Bronx library fifth in the country — ahead of Yale, Harvard, and Columbia. The Walsh Family Library opened in 1997 after Duane Library, Fordham's original collection, simply ran out of room. Duane sat empty after that until its renovation into a visitors' center. Spanning five floors and over 240,000 square feet, the library holds more than one million volumes and 380,000 U.S. government documents. It bears the name of a Fordham alumnus whose major contribution made it possible.