Boston Public Library McKim Building

Why is it significant?

Stand before the monumental Renaissance Revival facade of the Boston Public Library's McKim Building, completed in 1895 to designs by the distinguished architectural firm McKim, Mead & White.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Stand before the monumental Renaissance Revival facade of the Boston Public Library's McKim Building, completed in 1895 to designs by the distinguished architectural firm McKim, Mead & White. Founded in 1848 as the first large free municipal public library in the United States and the first to allow citizens to borrow books to read at home, this monumental civic temple was envisioned by Charles Follen McKim as a true "Palace for the People."

Carved in bold classical Roman letters across the granite frieze above the entrance is the library's enduring democratic motto: Free to All. Flanking the monumental bronze entrance doors crafted by sculptor Daniel Chester French are colossal allegorical statues by Augustus Saint-Gaudens and Bela Pratt representing Art and Science.

Step through the grand marble vestibule and ascend the sweeping grand staircase paved in yellow Siena marble, guarded by two carved marble lions sculpted by Louis Saint-Gaudens in memory of fallen Civil War regiments. The staircase leads to the second-floor gallery, adorned with a series of sublime, dreamlike murals painted by celebrated French master Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. On the third floor rests Sargent Hall, home to the Triumph of Religion murals painted by John Singer Sargent over nearly three decades. At the heart of the building lies Bates Hall, a monumental reading room spanning two hundred and eighteen feet beneath a soaring fifty-foot barrel-vaulted ceiling, where generations of scholars have studied beneath iconic green-shaded brass banker's lamps.

Step into the central open-air cloister courtyard, inspired directly by the fifteenth-century Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome. A bubbling fountain and classical arcades surround a copy of Frederick MacMonnies' bronze statue Bacchante and Infant Faun, offering an oasis of scholarly serenity in the heart of the metropolis.

Walk around the corner to Boylston Street to admire the historic tower of Old South Church.