Why visit
America's first large free municipal library opened this McKim building in 1895 as a self-declared 'palace for the people,' and the palace still admits everyone without a ticket. Bates Hall is the showpiece - a 218-foot barrel-vaulted reading room where rows of green-shaded lamps glow beneath sandstone arches, among the most photographed interiors in America (photograph quietly; people are working). Beyond it: John Singer Sargent's mural cycle up the grand staircase, Puvis de Chavannes' allegories, and an arcaded Italianate courtyard whose fountain makes the city's most civilized free pause - directly across Copley Square from Trinity Church. Free art-and-architecture tours run regularly (verify times). For Gulf visitors it lands as a statement about a young country's reverence for knowledge - and a gorgeous, cost-free, weather-proof hour between Back Bay shopping stretches.
