J. Pierpont Morgan Library
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(2006)
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Location | 225 Madison Avenue at East 36th Street Manhattan, New York City |
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Coordinates | Coordinates: 40°44′55.69″N 73°58′53.6″W / 40.7488028°N 73.981556°W |
Built | 1900–06 |
Architect | Charles Follen McKim |
Architectural style | Palladian |
NRHP Reference # | 66000544 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | November 13, 1966 |
Designated NHL | November 13, 1966 |
Designated NYCL | May 17, 1966 |
The Morgan Library & Museum – formerly the Pierpont Morgan Library – is a museum and research library located at 225 Madison Avenue at East 36th Street in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was founded to house the private library of J. P. Morgan in 1906, which included manuscripts and printed books, some of them in rare bindings, as well as his collection of prints and drawings. The library was designed by Charles McKim of the firm of McKim, Mead and White and cost $1.2 million. It was made a public institution in 1924 by J. P. Morgan's son John Pierpont Morgan, Jr., in accordance with his father's will.
The building was designated a New York City landmark in 1966 and was declared a National Historic Landmark later that same year.
Today the library is a complex of buildings which serve as a museum and scholarly research center. The scope of the collection was shaped in its early years as a private collection by Belle da Costa Greene, J.P. Morgan's personal librarian, who became the library's first director and served from the time that it became public until her retirement in 1948. Her successor Frederick Baldwin Adams, Jr. managed the Library until 1969 and was also world-renowned for his own personal collections. The most internationally significant part of the collection is its relatively small but very select collection of illuminated manuscripts, and medieval artworks such as the Stavelot Triptych and the metalwork covers of the Lindau Gospels. Among the more famous manuscripts are the Morgan Bible, Morgan Beatus, Hours of Catherine of Cleves, Farnese Hours, Morgan Black Hours, and Codex Glazier. The manuscript collection also includes authors' original manuscripts, including some by Sir Walter Scott and Honoré de Balzac, as well as the scraps of paper on which Bob Dylan jotted down "Blowin' in the Wind" and "It Ain't Me Babe".