Two women, dressed in jogging clothes and pushing strollers, peered through the glass door of the newest branch of the New York Public Library, primed to open next week at 175 North End Avenue in Battery Park City. From inside, the library’s newly minted manager, Billy Parrott, spotted the women and, smiling widely, rushed for the door.

“Next Monday,” he told the women, making no effort to hide his excitement. “We’ll be open at 10 a.m., sharp.”

It’s an exchange Parrott said he has had dozens of times in the last few weeks, as he and his staff have been busy stocking the 10,000-square-foot library’s shelves in anticipation of its March 15 opening. The new library—once thought of as the pie-in-the-sky dream of a few neighborhood residents and community leaders—boasts a collection of more than 23,000 books, CDs and DVDs, with new materials still being added by the hundreds every day.

“People are really excited about this,” Parrot said. “I think they’ve been waiting so long for a library here, there’s just this sense of relief that it’s finally happening.”

While the library will be open for business on Monday, that sense of relief and elation will likely be much more pronounced on March 18, at the library’s grand opening celebration. Starting at 10 a.m., a ribbon-cutting ceremony will be followed by an architectural tour, arts and crafts for kids, a community poetry reading and a live “birds of prey” demonstration, featuring owls, hawks and falcons.

“It should be a lot of fun,” Parrott said. “I think it’s going to be a great kick-off for the kinds of events and programs we want to have become a regular thing here.”

Floor-to-ceiling window light wash the first-floor children’s section—complete with a story-time corner, kids-only computers and stroller parking. And on the second floor, it brightens the library’s orange and marigold décor. A multimedia lab and reading alcoves overlook Teardrop Park and the Hudson River.

“It’s an incredibly bright, open space,” Parrott said. “People are really going to want sit in here and read a book or a magazine, have their coffee and just enjoy the experience.”

The library also pays tribute to Battery Park City’s reputation for environmentally friendly construction. It will be the first LEED-certified city library in Manhattan, and only the second in the five boroughs. The floors on both levels are made of recycled materials: upstairs, they are padded with carpet made from old tires, while the downstairs floor tiles are made from bits of wood, glass and rocks. Much of the furniture is also made of recycled plastic, wood and even old parachute straps.

While much of the library’s day-to-day programming is still being finalized, Parrott said a few programs and activities have already been scheduled, including weekly story times for toddlers and arts and crafts workshops for kids aged 5-12. Computer classes, author readings and movie screenings are also in the works.

For residents, many of whom began campaigning for a library in the neighborhood more than a decade ago, it is a long-overdue addition to Battery Park City.

“In the beginning, it was an uphill battle,” said Maria Smith, a former chairwoman of Community Board 1’s Battery Park City Committee and an early advocate for the library. “A lot of people said [we] were too small for a library, that we didn’t have the money for a library. It didn’t just happen overnight.”

At a recent meeting of the Battery Park City Committee, chairwoman Linda Belfer credited resident Percy Corcoran for sparking the grassroots push for a library 11 years ago. Less than a year after Corcoran moved into Battery Park City in 1998, she began a letter writing campaign that led to rallies and meetings with local politicians and city officials. Back then, Corcoran said, it looked as if the library would be built on South End Avenue.

“Everything was going great, but then Sept. 11 happened,” Corcoran said.

In the ensuing years, residents, Community Board 1 members and other library advocates wrangled endlessly with developers and city officials for space and funding for the facility. Finally, in 2004, the Battery Park City Authority agreed to donate 10,000 square feet of the River House building—at a rent of $1 per-year through 2069—while Goldman Sachs, in exchange for CB1's support of its massive new office building in the neighborhood, offered to put up $3.5 million toward its construction.

Delays and cost overruns eventually saw the library’s price tag swell to $6.7 million, forcing the city and the Battery Park City Authority to make up the difference. Now, after 11 years of uncertainty and false starts, Corcoran said she is eager to put her library card to use.

“I can’t wait to be in there and actually take out a book,” she said. “It’s hard to put into words. When I first saw the letters on the side of the building about a month ago, I actually reached out and touched it. I finally got to hold something in my hand.”

For more information about the Battery Park City branch of the New York Public Library, including updates to the library’s schedule of programs and activities, go to http://nypl.org/locations/battery-park-city.