Spring equinox

Weather was much colder today. We did some shopping. In the fifth Avenie and at the Macy's. Then we dropped by in the Morgan Library and Museum, which is close to our hotel. We had a proper afternoon tea there. The original library and study rooms were very impressive.

Morgan Library & Museum began as the personal library of financier, collector, and cultural benefactor Pierpont Morgan. As early as 1890 Morgan had begun to assemble a collection of illuminated, literary, and historical manuscripts, early printed books, and old master drawings and prints.


Mr. Morgan's library, as it was known in his lifetime, was built between 1902 and 1906 adjacent to his New York residence at Madison Avenue and 36th Street, which is an Italian Renaissance-style palazzo 


In 1924, eleven years after Pierpont Morgan's death, his son, J. P. Morgan, Jr. (1867–1943), known as Jack, realized that the library had become too important to remain in private hands. In what constituted one of the most momentous cultural gifts in U.S. history, he fulfilled his father's dream of making the library and its treasures available to scholars and the public alike by transforming it into a public institution.




+8 C, cloudy