The Morgan Library & Museum

The story

Belle da Costa Greene ran this library for more than four decades — a remarkable tenure for the first librarian of what began as one banker's private obsession. J. P. Morgan spent the late nineteenth century collecting thousands of objects, then built a home for them on Madison Avenue between 1902 and 1906, on land his family had owned since 1880. His son gave it all to the public in 1924, honoring his father's will. It has been expanding ever since, most recently in 2022, still insisting that serious collections belong to everyone.