Though New York's first free public library was the Astor Library, the mammoth red-brick, faux-Venetian gothic pile on Lafayette that now houses the Public Theater, the city's first circulating library is the still-grand old New York Society Library, which opened its doors to the public in 1754. Today, the facility houses some 275,000 volumes and the current and back issues of all sorts of local, national, and international periodicals. Its first-floor reference collection is open to all for... More »
