Harry Belafonte 115th Street Library

The story

The limestone was so deeply rusticated it looked carved from a single Harlem block. McKim, Mead & White designed this Neo Italian Renaissance building for Andrew Carnegie's citywide library initiative — one of 65 branches he funded, 11 of them by the same firm. It opened November 6, 1908, three stories and fifty feet wide, its arched first-floor openings facing 115th Street. For decades it served as a Harlem cultural center and hub of organizing efforts. In 2017 it was renamed for Harry Belafonte, who lived nearby — his archives held at the Schomburg, just up the road.