Wow… what a building! I went because my friend, Cece, told me not to miss it. I stayed for the tour because a nice, but insistent, docent said that it was a much better use of an hour than shopping would be. She was right!

The famous NY Public Library is housed in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. It’s a huge, beautiful, and you can read a lot more about it here. I’m going to share some of the pictures I took…

Patience, or Fortitude, on guard at the front door on Fifth Avenue:

These are the actual, for real, animals from Winnie-the-Pooh:

These stuffed animals have been well-loved, worn, and mended. Piglet is much flatter than I imagined he would be—and tiny!

This illustrated book from the 14th century (if I remember correctly) is lovely, with bright colors and the penmanship is totally amazing. But I could not help thinking of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I can hear it playing in my head :-).

The Rose Reading room is huge, beautiful, and very quiet because it is for reading. Seriously. You can get in to read or on a tour. You can no longer walk through it as a tourist who is not going to read.

The chairs look comfy…

As I said, lions are the mascot. This one is on a drinking fountain. The library opened in 1911 and the marble looks worn enough that it may be original to the building.

The library houses so many collections, books both rare and common, maps, photographs, original works of all kinds… there is just so much. It is a treasure worth visiting!