Culture in Murray Hill

The concourse ceiling is a night sky painted backwards, which nobody caught until after it was finished, and there is a dark patch left unrestored near Cancer so you can see what seventy years of tobacco smoke did. Down the ramp outside the Oyster Bar the tiled arches carry a whisper diagonally across the corner. Free, and open until two in the morning.

Daily, 5:15am to 2am

The old Mid-Manhattan branch across Fifth Avenue from the lions, gutted and rebuilt in 2021 as the largest circulating library the system has. Open reading floors stacked up the building, a long central stair, and on the seventh floor a roof terrace with seats and a view north up Fifth. Everything is free and nobody asks why you are there.

Mon to Thu, 8am to 9pm. Fri, 8am to 8pm. Sat and Sun, 10am to 6pm

Known as the Little Church Around the Corner since 1870, when a nearby parish refused to bury an actor and sent the family here instead. It is built low and rambling like an English village church, set back behind a lychgate with a garden in front, and the stained glass inside includes a window of Edwin Booth as Hamlet. The garden is open in daylight and costs nothing.

Garden open daily in daylight. Church interior Mon to Fri, 9am to 4pm, and Sunday between and after the morning services until about 3pm

Pierpont Morgan's private library of 1906, three tiers of walnut shelving behind brass grilles, with a ceiling painted to look like a Renaissance vault. His study next door still has the red silk on the walls. The newer galleries change shows every few months and there is a glass-roofed court in the middle with a cafe in it.

Tue to Thu, 10:30am to 5pm. Fri, 10:30am to 8pm. Sat and Sun, 10:30am to 5pm. Closed Monday