Pros
it's a great place to work if you have other priorities in your life. Somewhat decent medical benefits --- that is, if you sign up for the union plan with no copay, although your choices are somewhat limited.
Cons
NYPL is a large organization with thousands of employees. Your mileages may likewise vary, but based on my experience... the mgmt folks in my area were emotionally immature and technically incompetent. I cautiously, but clearly, sounded the alarms to the upper mgmt folks whenever boundaries were crossed and dubious, and sometimes outright fraudulent, technical/business decisions were made (I cringed and face-palmed at every meeting with my mgr). My coworkers were largely indifferent -- too busy blaming everything on ex co-worker who had left the group well over a year ago (man up boys!) -- but soon discovered the reason behind such deafening silence. My approach was fairly diplomatic and it seemed like they were listening initially, or at least first three, four times. But their final response? They accused me of being condescending and too negative. In hindsight, it was a mistake to bring up issues to those who are not only as incompetent, however diplomatic, but also actually helped nurture the culture of mediocrity and hustling over the past decade or so. Their priorities were also elsewhere -- and I kid you not -- clean desk and dress code. Much to my frustration, the only opportunity I had to talk seriously with the upper mgmt folks was when janitors complained about my desk. Their classic moment was one recent incident involving the integrity of large amount of data that my manager repeatedly lied about and I'd warned six months earlier -- in this particular case, less diplomatically and straight to the point. The upper management walked out dismissing my concern. They know how to do their job and I need to find better things to do, I was told. Thanks to a wonderful NYT article covering NYPL's digital projects, it didn't take years to discover their shenanigan. After it became quite obvious what had happened, they quickly blamed the lower ranks, then came up with a lame excuse that their hands were tied. Realizing that it wasn't an isolated problem, I stayed low key and focused on job search instead.