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Boston Public Library

America’s first large free city library, a “palace for the people”

Local name: Boston Public Library

Collection: Boston · USA · Open in OpenStreetMap

The McKim Building on Copley Square
The McKim Building on Copley Square · Lëa-Kim Châteauneuf, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

The story

Before you is the Central Library of Boston, the McKim Building. The Boston Public Library was founded in 1848. It was the first large city library in the United States free to everyone. Above the central arch it says just that: “Free to All.” There too is the head of Minerva, goddess of wisdom, by the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens. The building was designed by the New York architect Charles Follen McKim. It was built from 1888 to 1895, and at the time it was called the most expensive library in the world. Books were first lent here on the eleventh of March 1895. The library wanted to be a “palace for the people,” and the best artists of the day were brought in to decorate it. The grand staircase is guarded by two marble lions by Louis Saint-Gaudens, Augustus’s brother, in memory of two Massachusetts Civil War regiments. On the staircase walls are murals by the Frenchman Puvis de Chavannes. On the second floor, Bates Hall, a reading room with a barrel-vaulted ceiling, runs the full width of the building. On the same floor are Edwin Abbey’s murals of the Quest of the Holy Grail, and on the third floor a hall of murals by John Singer Sargent. At the heart of the building is an arcaded courtyard, a quiet spot in the middle of the city. In 1972 a new building by the architect Philip Johnson was added next door, in the same pink granite.

Visiting

The McKim Building entrance is at 230 Dartmouth Street, on Copley Square; the library’s main address is 700 Boylston Street. Free entry. The library runs art and architecture tours that start at the Dartmouth Street entrance; schedule and opening hours at bpl.org.

Photos

The Bates Hall reading room
The Bates Hall reading room · Lëa-Kim Châteauneuf, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
The grand staircase with its lions
The grand staircase with its lions · Lëa-Kim Châteauneuf, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

Sources

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