Morgan Library & Museum

Listen for a moment. Madison Avenue is loud here, with taxis, delivery trucks and footsteps on the pavement. A few steps inside, the noise drops away. You are standing in Murray Hill, at the corner of Madison Avenue and 36th Street. In front of you is a low, pale building of marble. It does not tower over the street. It sits quietly behind its railings, almost like a small temple that has wandered into Manhattan.

This is the Morgan Library and Museum. It began as the private library of one man, Pierpont Morgan. Morgan was the most powerful banker in America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He financed railroads, steel and whole industries. He was also an obsessive collector. He bought rare books, illuminated manuscripts, drawings and letters on a scale few people had ever attempted. Eventually his treasures needed a home of their own.

The original library building was designed by the architect Charles McKim, of the firm McKim, Mead and White. It was completed in the first decade of the twentieth century, around 1906. McKim looked to the Italian Renaissance for his model. The result is calm, balanced and symmetrical. Notice the deep entrance framed by columns. Notice the lions that guard the steps. Everything here was built to say that knowledge deserves the same dignity as a palace.

Here is a detail most visitors walk straight past. Look closely at the marble walls. The joints between the blocks are extremely fine. Accounts of the construction say McKim wanted the stones fitted in the ancient Greek manner, cut so precisely that they needed almost no mortar. It was slow and very costly work. Morgan, it seems, did not mind the expense. Run your eye along a seam and see how tight it is.

Now step inside, and the mood changes completely. The original building centres on a rotunda, a round entrance hall. Above you, the ceiling glows with painted panels and decoration. Marble columns and coloured stone frame the space. Underfoot, the floor is laid in patterned marble. After the plain exterior, the colour feels sudden and warm. This was the entrance hall that Morgan's guests saw before they reached his books.

To one side is the East Room, the library itself. Many people stop at the doorway for a long moment. Three tiers of bookcases climb the walls, all in dark wood with brass details. Narrow balconies run around the upper levels. Above them, painted ceiling panels show figures from art and history. The room smells faintly of old paper and polished wood. Look for the hidden staircases. Legend has it they sit behind concealed bookcase doors.

On the other side is the West Room, which was Morgan's study. The walls are covered in deep red fabric. The ceiling is carved wood, and portraits and small treasures fill the room. This is where Morgan sat and received visitors. And here is a story that is well documented. During the financial panic of 1907, Morgan gathered leading bankers in this library. He kept them working through the night until they agreed on a plan to save the banking system.

The library is also the story of a remarkable woman. Morgan hired a young librarian named Belle da Costa Greene. She became one of the most respected experts on manuscripts of her time. She bargained with dealers across Europe and built the collection with great skill. After Morgan's death, his son, J. P. Morgan Junior, turned the library into a public institution in the 1920s. Greene became its first director and led it for many years.

What exactly is inside? The collection is very broad. There are medieval manuscripts, painted by hand with gold leaf and bright colours. There are early printed books, including copies of the Gutenberg Bible, one of the first books printed in Europe with movable type. There are drawings by old masters. There are music scores written by famous composers. And there are letters and manuscripts from many of the great writers in English.

One treasure has a seasonal tradition. The Morgan holds the original handwritten manuscript of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. You can see his crossings out and his cramped corrections on the pages. In past years, the museum has often displayed it around the winter holidays. It is a small thing to look at, only a few pages open in a glass case. But it is the very paper where Scrooge and Tiny Tim were first written down.

Over the decades the complex grew. An annex was added in the 1920s on the site of Morgan's own house. His son's brownstone mansion on the corner became part of the campus too. Then, in the 2000s, the Italian architect Renzo Piano designed a major expansion. He did not copy the old buildings. Instead he added steel and glass that sit between them, quiet and modest in scale.

The heart of Piano's design is a tall, glass-roofed court that joins the old buildings together. Light falls in from above. You can sit here and look out at the marble walls of McKim's library and the brick of the old mansion. It feels like a town square under glass. The café tables, the soft echo and the plants make it a good place to rest between galleries.

Before you leave, stand still for one more minute. Notice how quiet it is, even in the middle of Manhattan. A banker who shaped American money built this place for books and drawings, not for profit. As you walk back out onto Madison Avenue, look once more at those tight marble joints and the patient lions by the door. Then let the noise of the city return, slowly, around you.