The 5th Avenue branch of the New York Public Library is famous enough to make it on some tourist itineraries, including mine. When I stopped by yesterday, I went to the “cameras allowed” section of the reading room and tried to stay out of people’s photos in the rotunda on the third floor, and I watched in amusement as actual New Yorkers tried to actually use their library amid all this.

The New York Public Library

The Reading Room

Apparently the library still uses pneumatic tubes to shuttle call slips around when people are searching for books in the vast catalog, which I find delightful. They have one of the 48 surviving copies of the original Gutenberg Bible, which showed still-vibrant black ink, a few lovely illuminated letters, and what looked like notes scribbled in the margins.

It was an impressive building, and a fine place to pass an hour.

The Map Room of the New York Public Library

Me and the globe

One of four panels showing the history of books in Western civilization–one guy is rocking jorts and the other guy decided pants weren’t necessary at all. That is what I took from this.