613 - Morgan Library
Today I visited the private library of JP Morgan.
You know, the dude who owns Chase Bank. It turns out that he had his own private library with over 350,000 objects- including three Gutenberg Bibles, letters from Mark Twain, and the world’s largest collection of Rembrandt etchings.
Not that any of those priceless items were interesting to me per say, but they were there. I was here to take photos of the architecture. Ever since my trip to the George Peabody Library in Baltimore, I felt an itch to build out my library of library photos. Heh.
The tickets were rather pricey, but at this point, I’ve accepted that doing literally anything in New York City was a minimum $35 expense. As JP Morgan would say, “No price is too great for a work of unquestioned beauty and known authenticity.”
I’ll take that to heart.
My goal was to show up to the library first thing in the morning, and knock out a bunch of photos before the crowds got in. If there even was a crowd. Who the fuck goes to New York to tour a paid library?
Well, as it turns out, everyone. I showed up at 10AM to a crowd of 30+ people waiting outside for the library to open- and it was pouring rain. The good thing was that an actual line hadn’t formed yet, and people were just globbering around by the door. I swiftly maneuvered myself to the front.
The security guards stared at us through the glass doors, silently judging our arrival. “These people really paid $35 to stand in the rain waiting for a library of old books.” I could imagine them whispering to each other. JP Morgan was still swindling people and he’d been dead for over 100 years.
Finally the doors opened, but security held us back. “Kids first,” one said, then nodded behind my shoulder. I looked back as two school buses skidded up to the curb.
I started in absolute horror as dozens of kids piled onto the street and parading into the building. With every passing kid, I knew my chances of getting a photo decreased by 10%. Welp. There goes my entire shoot. Doesn’t the education system have better things to do than send kids to the library?
Finally one last straggler hopped out of the bus and ran inside.
I made eye contact with the security guard and he nodded with approval. I bee-lined it inside with a pace that would have won the speed walking Olympics.
The crazy thing was that no one was in the actual library yet. Not a single soul. As it turns out, this place was actually a massive museum, and the library that I came here to take photos of was only a small room in the corner of the building.
All of those kids that piled in before me must be stuck in some classroom learning about the history of banks. Let’s gooooooooo.
Knowing I only had seconds before the crowd behind me followed, I snapped photos from just about every angle possible:
The lone security guard in the library room was looking at me like I was absolutely nuts. I was zipping around at supersonic speeds as I crawled around the floor for those rad angles.
Judgement is the true price of fine photography.
Minutes later the crowd rolled in, and with them came the kids. But I’d already gotten my money’s worth, just as I’d planned. As JP Morgan would say, “when you expect things to happen - strangely enough - they do happen.”
I’m on a mission to explore as much as humanely possible.
Want to see my progress? Check out the Adventure Map.
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