The Power of Taxes
Morgan Library & Museum
I had sorely regretted not visiting the Morgan Library on my first visit to New York, so I made it a big point to see it this time around. Upon arrival, this rotunda distracts you for a moment before you head into J.P. Morgan’s private study to the west, or to the original library to the east. Either way, prepare to be amazed.
In the second half of the 19th century, the site of the library was occupied by four brownstone houses, which had been built in 1852-1853 by members of the Phelps Stokes and Dodge families, who were in the mercantile business. John Piermont Morgan, a banker from Connecticut, wished to live in Murray Hill, and sought to buy one of these homes, which he succeeded in doing in 1881. At around this same time, Morgan began to amass a large collection of fine art — following in the footsteps of his father — which he stored in his house in England to avoid import taxes. He also began to collect rare books, though these he was able to store in New York, as these were not subject to the same taxation.
(Pictures can’t do justice to this room, with its endless rows of bookshelves, its lustrous ceiling paintings, and the general cozy vibe that it manages to have, even if it is impressively large.)
As time passed and Morgan became more and more successful, he acquired more of the properties surrounding his own home, until eventually he owned two thirds of the entire city block. By 1900, he had more books than he could hold at his home (I can sympathize), so he bought a new plot of land to build himself a library (an elegant solution I wish I could implement as well). At first, Morgan hired Warren and Wetmore, responsible for the Grand Central Terminal, but ultimately rejected their plans for a new building. Eventually, the project went to Charles McKim of McKim, Mead & White, with C.T. Wills as the builder.
By early 1903, the foundation stone for the building was set, and construction began that April. The library was completed in 1906, and at around this same time, J.P. Morgan hired Belle da Costa Greene as his personal librarian.
He often held business meetings at the library, and even demolished the Dodge house and replaced it with a garden designed by Beatrix Farrand to allow pedestrians to admire the building from Madison Avenue. Morgan eventually moved his collection from abroad into the library, and opened it for public view a few days a week in order to avoid paying import taxes (again).
Belle da Costa Greene was born in Washington, D.C. as Belle Marion Greener. Her mother, Genevieve Ida Fleet, was a music teacher and member of a well-known African-American family in D.C.; her father, Richard Theodore Greener, was the first Black student, and first Black graduate, of Harvard (class of 1870), and later served as dean of the Howard University School of Law. After her parents’ separation, the rest of the family, including Belle’s siblings, changed their surname to Greene and began to pass as white. This is when Belle dropped the “Marion” from her name and added “da Costa” to claim a Portuguese background.
She worked in the administrative offices at Columbia University’s Teacher College in the 1890s, where she met Grace Hoadley Dodge, philanthropist and social welfare advocate, who funded a spot for Green at the Northfield Seminary for Young Ladies. She attended for three years, and followed it up with Amherst College’s Summer School of Library Economy. She began to work at the Princeton Library in 1902, where she met Junius Spencer Morgan II, who later introduced her to his uncle, J.P. Morgan.
Her first task once she was employed by Morgan was to organize and catalogue his collection, but she eventually began to complete purchases to add to it as well. Some time after J.P. Morgan’s death in 1913, the library became a public institution (1924), and Green was named its first director. She retired in 1948, and passed in 1950.
After becoming a public institution, the library opened to the public, though it remained exclusive in the sense that only researchers — and only ever 10 at a time — could visit it. An annex was added in 1928, and the library continued to grow and expand its collection, acquiring manuscripts, books, and drawings. In 1942, after city officials requested that the library’s tax-exempt status be removed, as it was not a public library, its own officials agreed to open it to the general public.
Gold Colored Fox 