The Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) is a popular and critical institution and is the nation’s sixth largest public library system with nearly 700,000 active cardholders. Bushwick and the surrounding area is home to four BPL branches along with the Ridgewood Branch of the Queens Library system. These Bushwick area libraries were built with money donated to the city by industrialist-turned-philanthropist Andrew Carnegie at the turn of the 20th century, and all function as important community centers with free integrated public services.