Boston Public Library at Copley Square: What to See

The Boston Public Library's central building at Copley Square is free to enter, open to anyone, and one of the most beautiful interiors in the city. A remarkable number of residents have never been past the front desk.

Two buildings, one library

The central library is really two connected structures.

The McKim Building, opened in 1895, is the grand one: a Renaissance revival palace built as a deliberate civic statement about public access to knowledge. The inscription on the façade about the commonwealth requiring the education of the people is not decoration; it is the argument the building was constructed to make.

The Johnson Building next door is the modern addition, renovated in recent years into the busy, contemporary, actually-used-as-a-library half. This is where most of the circulating collection and the daily activity is.

Most visitors want the McKim building and do not know to ask for it by name.

What to see inside the McKim building

Bates Hall, the main reading room, is the image most associated with the library: an enormous barrel-vaulted room with green-shaded lamps running down long tables. It is a working reading room, so people are studying in it. You are welcome, quietly.

The courtyard, an arcaded Italianate space open to the sky at the centre of the building, is one of the great public rooms in Boston and is almost always less crowded than it should be. In warm weather you can sit there.

The Sargent murals, John Singer Sargent's cycle on the upper floor, are a major work by a major painter, installed over decades and rarely crowded.

The staircases, the lions, and the ceiling work throughout are worth the time on their own.

What you can do there

Everything a library does. Read, work, use the wifi, use the collections. Free public programmes and exhibitions run regularly.

Massachusetts residents can get a library card, which extends to a great deal of digital borrowing as well as physical material. If you live in the state and do not have one, you are leaving a substantial amount of value unclaimed.

Research collections including rare materials are held here, with their own access procedures.

Practical notes

Check the current hours before going, and note that the McKim and Johnson sections may not keep identical schedules. Sunday hours in particular vary seasonally.

Guided tours of the art and architecture are offered and are a good use of an hour if you want context rather than a wander.

It sits on Copley Square, served by the Green Line at Copley and the Orange Line at Back Bay, both a short walk. Trinity Church is across the square and the two make an easy pairing.

Why it matters

This was the first large free municipal library in the United States, built on the proposition that a city should provide serious intellectual resources to everyone without charge. In a city where a great many of the famous institutions are private, expensive, or both, the library remains genuinely and completely open.

Walk in. Nobody will ask you for anything.