Parisian Library Hopping
I’m back in New York now – back to vicariously reading books about Paris, back to craving another trip across the Atlantic, and back to nostalgically thumbing through photos from the city on my phone.
Some of my favorites, posted below, are from two of Paris’ grandest libraries: Sainte-Genevieve Bibliotheque in the shadow of the Pantheon and the Bibliotheque Nationale de France Site Richelieu in the 1st.
Unlike in Manhattan, where just anyone can stroll into the Stephen A. Schwarzman library or visit the Morgan, free rein of Paris’ public libraries is limited to French citizens. At Sainte-Genevieve, tourists can see the library only as part of a French language tour, which is hilariously passive aggressive. At Richelieu, meanwhile, swipe cards and guards prevent tourists from accessing all parts of the compound save for the main reading room (and not for lack of attempted snooping on my part!). At both libraries, tourists are confined to a small fenced pen, where they can take photos without unduly disturbing the reading of real Parisians. Now I know why all the Google images of these places are remarkably similar – 95% of the photos of these gorgeous spaces are taken from the same vantage point!
