Background Phelps Stokes/Dodge houses In the second half of the 19th century, the Morgan Library & Museum's site was occupied by four brownstone houses on the east side of Madison Avenue, between 36th Street to the south and 37th Street to the north. The houses were all built in 1852 or 1853 by members of the Phelps Stokes/Dodge merchant family. Three houses were built along Madison Avenue on lots measuring wide by deep, while a fourth house to the east measured wide and stretched between 37th and 36th Streets. All the houses were designed in an Italianate style with pink brownstone. The Madison Avenue houses, from north to south, were owned by Isaac Newton Phelps,
William E. Dodge, and
John Jay Phelps, while the 37th Street house was owned by George D. Phelps. The surrounding neighborhood of
Murray Hill was not yet developed at the time, but began to grow after the
American Civil War. Isaac Newton Phelps's daughter Helen married
Anson Phelps Stokes in 1865. Their son, the architect
Isaac Newton Phelps Stokes, was born in the Isaac Newton Phelps house at 231 Madison Avenue two years later. Helen Phelps inherited the house following her father's death. In 1888, she doubled the size of her house and added an attic; the architect
R. H. Robertson designed the expansion. was looking to buy his own house by 1880. He wished to live in Murray Hill, where many of his and his wife's friends and business contacts lived. Morgan sought to buy John Jay Phelps's house at 219 Madison Avenue, at the corner with 36th Street, which was offered for $225,000. He acquired the house in 1880 and renovated it over the following two years, moving there in 1882.
Morgan collection Morgan had collected handwriting samples as early as the 1850s, and he also acquired pictures and
stained glass pieces throughout the years. In the late 19th century, Morgan became one of the most influential financiers in the United States. As his wealth grew, Morgan amassed a collection of fine art, inspired by the collection of his father
Junius Spencer Morgan, and he also began collecting rare books and other bindings at his nephew
Junius's suggestion. The fine art was subject to import taxes and was stored in England; since books were not subject to import taxes, they were stored in the basement of his New York residence. J. P. Morgan's collection included 160 titles by 1883. Morgan began acquiring historically important manuscripts after his father obtained
Walter Scott's original manuscript of the book
Guy Mannering. From 1899 to 1902 alone, he took over three collectors' libraries, which included hundreds of illuminated manuscripts, prints, and other manuscripts. Morgan also acquired smaller collections, such as French literature, medieval chivalry, and American manuscript collections. Morgan may have collected these objects exclusively for pleasure and not for investment purposes. Morgan brought his art collection to the U.S. because an 1897 law allowed him to do it without paying import taxes, and also because he wanted to preserve the objects for the American people.
Development of library By 1900, Morgan's collection took up more space than was available in his residence, and his son-in-law described the basement as being packed with piles of objects. Some of his collection had to be stored at the
Lenox Library. Morgan was unable to expand the house due to an driveway east of it. While part of Morgan's collection was stored in the basement of his house,
Site acquisition In 1900, the plots north and east of J. P. Morgan's house were placed for sale after the death of Melissa Stokes Dodge, who lived in the Dodge mansion just north of Morgan's house. That January, he bought a plot of land on 36th Street, for a library. In 1902, Morgan acquired two more lots on 36th Street with a total frontage of . The Satterlees' house was made of limestone, as contrasted with the brownstones on Madison Avenue, and was connected to Morgan's own home by tunnels. The Satterlee residence measured wide, and Morgan used the plot between his house and the Satterlees' home for his new library. While the Satterlee house was under construction, the couple moved into the Dodge mansion. Jack initially lived nearby at 22 Park Avenue. When Jack and his wife
Jane Norton Grew moved into 229 Madison Avenue in 1905, he commissioned a major renovation of the interior and renumbered it as 231 Madison Avenue. Jack Morgan also performed $1,900 in changes to the house's exterior. J. P. Morgan came to own two-thirds of the city block; his holdings by 1907 included the whole frontage on Madison Avenue, stretching on 36th Street and on 37th Street. which would have had a heavily decorated upper section.
Whitney Warren of Warren and Wetmore had then just completed the elaborately decorated
New York Yacht Club Building, and Warren had wanted to design a domed structure. The library was to be a classical marble structure with a simple design; Morgan had told McKim that he wanted "a gem". At the time of the library's planning,
restrictive covenants in Murray Hill prohibited the construction of museums there, but the library was originally not planned as a museum. While McKim was responsible for the overall design, Morgan had final say over the aspects of the plan. Construction began that April, and the library was being dubbed as "Mr. Morgan's jewel case" by the next year.
The Wall Street Journal reported in June 1906 that Morgan had "wanted the most perfect structure that human hands could erect and was willing to pay whatever it cost". For example, the usage of dry masonry marble blocks, an uncommon construction method that eliminated the need for
joints made of
mortar, added $50,000 to the cost of construction. McKim had suggested the dry masonry blocks to Morgan, who readily agreed to pay the extra cost. To fit New York City's climate, and often upheld the library as an accomplishment of McKim's. This was because McKim was not only responsible for selecting the marble from Rome but also for hiring the library's decorators and craftsmen. Morgan acquired two hundred cases of books, which were temporarily stored in the
Lenox Library and moved to Morgan's personal library starting in December 1905. Around the same time, Morgan hired
Belle da Costa Greene as his personal librarian; she remained in charge of the collection for the next four decades. Toward the library's completion, Morgan reportedly requested that the entire library be shortened by one foot. During the
Panic of 1907, the presidents of the city's banks and trust companies were locked in the library overnight until they agreed on a plan to stop the financial crisis. To allow people to see his new library from Madison Avenue, Morgan demolished the Dodge house in 1907–1908 and replaced it with a garden designed by
Beatrix Farrand. As the librarian, Greene was tasked with expanding the collection, as well as cataloging and researching the history of each item. She frequently searched for rare volumes in back alleys, but initially tended to avoid auctions and rarely spent more than $10,000 on a book without permission. Morgan sometimes acquired art on short notice; in one case, he bought a
Vermeer painting minutes after learning about the artist. Morgan frequently met with foreign bankers in the library's study, and he often opted to work in the library rather than in his downtown office. Among Morgan's larger acquisitions in the late 1900s and early 1910s was a collection of rare American authors' manuscripts from merchant S. H. Wakeman in 1909.
The Wall Street Journal wrote in 1911 that "Mr. Morgan buys books as some financiers buy a thousand shares of stock"; in some years, he spent half his income on the collection. Acquisitions continued until his death in March 1913. Morgan had bought thousands of objects since 1899, including 600 manuscripts and 3,000 medieval items.
After J. P. Morgan's death Morgan's estate was valued at $128 million (about $ billion in ), over half of which lay in the worth of his collection. J. P. Morgan bequeathed all except one piece in the collection to the library, The month after J. P. Morgan's death, the New York state legislature granted a two-year exemption enabling Jack to import his father's overseas collection without having to pay import duties. Jack did not publicly show interest in his father's art collection and reportedly did not expand it in the year after his father died. Jack sold off much of the overseas collection rather than importing it, but he decided to keep the items that were already in his father's library. During 1914, the collection was displayed in full at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the only time the whole collection was displayed. The import duty exemption expired in April 1915, and Jack sold various items in the collection to pay the inheritance taxes and to raise money for the cash bequests in his father's will. Jack and Jane Morgan continued to employ Greene as the librarian, adding items that personally interested them. Frances Morgan, Jack's mother and John Pierpont's widow, lived at J. P. Morgan's old residence until her death in November 1924. Although Jane Morgan died in 1925, Jack continued to live at 231 Madison Avenue until his death in 1943, and the Satterlee home remained in the Morgan family until 1944. The
United Lutheran Church in America bought 231 Madison Avenue for its headquarters in 1943 and built a five-story annex there in 1957. It was the only remaining brownstone house along the Murray Hill section of Madison Avenue by the 1960s.
Public institution 1920s to 1940s The
Pierpont Morgan Library was incorporated as a public institution in March 1924, a month after Jack Morgan announced that he would transfer the collection to a board of trustees and provide a $1.5 million endowment for the library. The library's name reflected the fact that the elder J. P. Morgan had disliked being called by his first name and even his first initial. The Morgans transferred the library building, and the land under 219 Madison Avenue, to the Morgan Library. as Jack Morgan said, "one soiled thumb could undo the work of 900 years". The library's collection continued to grow, with emphasis placed on rare items; for example, though only four items were acquired in 1926, all of these were unique manuscripts. Though Jack initially denied that 219 Madison Avenue would be demolished,
Benjamin Wistar Morris was hired to design the annex, while
Marc Eidlitz & Son was hired to build it. The Morgan Library continued to expand its collections; for instance, between 1936 and 1940, it acquired twelve manuscripts and dozens of drawings. In the 25 years after it became a public institution, the Morgan Library acquired 200 total manuscripts, 83 books, and hundreds of autographed letters and papers. Through the early 1940s, the Morgan Library continued to limit access only to researchers, prompting city officials to request that the library's tax-exempt status be removed because it was not a public library. In December 1942, Morgan Library officials agreed to open the library to the general public, and city officials agreed not to fight the library's tax-exempt status. Many of the library's most valuable artifacts were transported to other locations in the U.S. in 1942 to protect them from possible World War II
airstrikes; the objects were returned to the library in December 1944. The Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library was formed in 1949 to raise funds for the collections and distribute funds to scholars and publications. After Belle da Costa Greene retired from the library in 1948,
Frederick Baldwin Adams Jr. was appointed as the Morgan's second director.
1950s to mid-1980s The Morgan Library started to host concerts and tours during the 1950s, Officials began raising $3 million for an expansion of the library in 1959; the money was to fund modifications to the annex and a new lecture hall, as well as artifact purchases and new programs. By that November, the library had raised $550,000. The renovation, designed by J. P. Morgan's nephew Alexander P. Morgan, In total, the renovation cost $1.4 million. Adams retired as the Morgan's director in 1969 and was succeeded by
Charles Ryskamp. During Ryskamp's 17-year tenure, the $11 million endowment was expanded to $38 million. By the early 1970s, the Morgan Library had several hundred fellows, or members, The Morgan Library constructed a five-story addition with storage vaults and offices in 1975. The library continued to acquire other collections in the 1970s and 1980s, including the musical manuscript collection of
Mary Flagler Cary; 1,500 Italian drawings from
János Scholz;
Dannie Heineman's collection of letters, books, and newspaper clippings; part of
Robin Lehman's music manuscript collection; and 75 rare manuscripts from William S. Glazier. Ryskamp also arranged various temporary exhibitions. and a $600,000
matching grant for its conservation department in 1981. In the mid-1980s, the institution was officially renamed the Morgan Library.
1980s and 1990s expansion Ryskamp resigned as director in 1986 Pierce was the first director of the Morgan who was not associated with
Princeton University. After he was appointed, Pierce sought to attract visitors; he would later recall that he was "disconcerted" by reports that previous visitors had been turned away from the library. The original buildings could display only one percent of the total collection at once, In 1989, the firm of
Voorsanger and Mills designed a glass conservatory connecting 231 Madison Avenue and the main building's annex. The conservatory would expand the library's space to , add a walled terrace on Madison Avenue, and make the structures wheelchair-accessible. Because the original building was a city landmark, the
New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) had to approve the plans. so 231 Madison Avenue became offices and a bookstore. display cases were added to the original East Library, and the West Study was opened to the public. The expansion was finished in October 1991, initially with 275 pieces from the permanent collection, along with temporary exhibition space in the main building. The project was originally planned to cost $9–10 million, Visitor numbers had increased by the mid-1990s, At the time, the library still had a reputation for being a rich enclave, and many board members were part of rich families.
Carter Burden's collection of over 30,000 American literary volumes, and
Pierre Matisse's collection of 2,000 letters from artists. The Morgan opened a drawing center on the second floor of the annex, designed by Beyer Blinder Belle, in 1999. The same year, the Morgan received $10 million from
Eugene V. Thaw and Clare E. Thaw; these funds were used to establish the Thaw Conservation Center, completed in 2002. By the beginning of the 21st century, the library's facilities had become dated. Pierce said later: "We had a lecture hall, not a concert hall; a reading room that owed more to 1928 instead of 2006."
2000s expansion The Morgan's board began planning another expansion in the late 1990s. The board hosted an
architectural design competition and selected three finalists, all of whose plans involved demolishing the 1991 conservatory. Ultimately, the board hired the Italian architect
Renzo Piano (who had not participated in the original competition Although Piano had not previously designed a building in New York City, The plans called for new exhibit areas, a reading room, an auditorium, and more storage space. The Morgan planned to raise $25 million for maintenance and $100 million for the renovation itself. The library presented preliminary plans to the LPC in January 2002. The LPC approved the proposal shortly afterward, despite concerns about the design from
Manhattan Community Board 6 and the architect
Robert A. M. Stern. In May 2003, the Morgan Library's buildings were closed for construction and expansion, and the collection was placed into storage or moved to other institutions. but wanted to accommodate twice that number. Workers built most of the new spaces underground, The Morgan also continued to acquire objects during the renovation, such as the collection of the lyricist
Fred Ebb. The project cost $106 million in total; The library reopened on April 29, 2006, and was renamed the Morgan Library & Museum. The museum also hosted concerts in its new auditorium, and it hired
Restaurant Associates to operate a cafe there. Pierce retired as the museum's director in early 2007, saying that some museum members had opposed changes made during his tenure. overseeing the growth of its collections, exhibition programs, and curatorial departments. By the late 2000s, there was still not enough space for the museum's permanent collection.
2010s to present In May 2010, Griswold announced that the main building would be renovated, and the museum started providing audio guides about its collections. and included cleaning the marble facade, replacing electrical systems and lighting, and opening the North Room to the public. Beyer Blinder Belle designed the restoration, Alongside the main building's renovation, Griswold wanted to digitize the collection. The Morgan established a photography department in 2012. The Morgan Library & Museum announced in February 2019 that it would renovate the main building's facade. Integrated Conservation Resources restored the main building, since the neighborhood, at the time, lacked parkland. The LPC had initially opposed the garden, as the original building had never had a garden, but approved the project after learning that J. P. Morgan had wanted a garden around the library. The museum was temporarily closed from March to September 2020 during the
COVID-19 pandemic, and the renovation was delayed as a result. The Morgan Library & Museum celebrated its 100th anniversary as a public institution in 2024. To celebrate its centennial, the museum began raising $50 million in 2023, including $35 million for its endowment and $15 million for capital improvements. The heiress
Katharine Rayner donated $10 million to endow the director's position, which was renamed in her honor in early 2024, and the Jerome L. Greene Foundation donated another $5 million. == Collection ==