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New York Public Library
The grandest free building in New York. Marble halls, the lions out front, and a reading room under a painted sky that you can walk into for nothing.
- Where
- 476 Fifth Avenue, Midtown Open in Google Maps ↗
- Also called
- NYPL · Stephen A. Schwarzman Building · NY Public Library main branch · Rose Main Reading Room
- Cost
- Free
- Good with
- Solo · A date · Family
- Go when
- 10am on a weekday, for the Reading Room visiting hour
- Website
- www.nypl.org
The Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, the main branch of the New York Public Library, is one of the grandest buildings in the country, and it costs nothing to walk in. It is architecturally stunning from the first step: up past the lions and into a marble hall that makes the noise of Fifth Avenue disappear.
The building
Carrère and Hastings designed it in the Beaux-Arts style, and it opened in 1911, built on the site of the old Croton reservoir. The facade is white Vermont marble, with columns, arches and sculpture across the whole Fifth Avenue front. The two lions on the steps, Patience and Fortitude, were carved by the Piccirilli Brothers from Edward Clark Potter’s design, and have guarded the door ever since.
Inside, Astor Hall is all marble and vaults. Take the stairs up to the third floor, through the McGraw Rotunda and its murals, to the Rose Main Reading Room: two great halls joined by a central desk, almost two city blocks long, with enormous arched windows, carved wood, chandeliers and a ceiling painted with open sky and clouds. Long oak tables run the length of it. It’s one of the great rooms of the world, and people still come here to read and work every day.
What to know
Entry is free and you don’t need a library card. The building opens at 10am Monday to Saturday (until 8pm on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 6pm otherwise) and from 1pm to 5pm on Sundays. The Reading Room is for researchers most of the day, but visitors can walk in during the visiting hour, 10am to 11am Monday to Saturday, with last entry at 10:50. Free one-hour tours of the building run at 11am and 2pm Monday to Saturday, and tickets are released each Sunday for the week ahead.
Bryant Park is right behind it. See the library, then sit down there.