This is the third in what is becoming a short series of postings on Lovecraft and the bookstores and libraries of New York City. I’m developing another chapter for a future new expanded edition of my Walking With Cthulhu book, it seems.

“… bidding the Longs farewell at the 96th St. station I proceeded forthwith to the Public Library in 42nd St. — where [as you will remember, on previous occasion] we saw the manuscripts — to read a new Arthur Machen tale, The Shining Pyramid, obtainable there but not removable from the building.” — H.P. Lovecraft, May 1925.

Here is the Library exterior seen in a rare postcard from approximately street view, whereas most postcards show a bird’s-eye view…

I think the background tower here is The Empire State Building, completed 1931, so it wouldn’t have been towering over the scene as Lovecraft approached the Library in 1925.

Let’s accompany Lovecraft into the building and up to the Reading Room. Lovecraft approaches the entrance frontage from approx. street level…

He knows the entrance well. Here’s the entrance as it was in winter, 1927…

And here’s a view on the entrance that Lovecraft would likely have been familiar with, on ascending the steps…

I’m uncertain if he borrowed books from here, as apparently the Circulation shelves / issuing desks tended to become very crowded…

The 1916 Handbook notes of the postcard picture (above) of the Circulation room…

“Central Circulation Branch (sign over door reads, “Circulating Library”). This is one of the forty-four Branches of The New York Public Library, intended for the circulation of books for home use. In this instance alone the Branch is situated in the Central Building and is supported by the funds of the Library and not by the City. The room is interesting because of its activity. The view of it reproduced in this book had to be taken when but few people were there, but during afternoons and evenings, especially in the autumn, winter, and spring months, the room is frequently over-crowded with readers and borrowers of books.” (my emphasis)

Thus he may have been relatively unfamiliar with the lending library, and passed it by. But possibly he often stopped off at the Exhibition Hall for temporary shows, the Exhibition Hall apparently being on the First Floor. The entrance to it is seen here during wartime…

I don’t know of any conveniently dated listing of exhibitions held here in the 1920s and 30s, by which we might see if any would have especially appealed to Lovecraft and his circle.

But let us assume that, on this day, Lovecraft merely looked over the notices and posters for forthcoming exhibitions and then continued walking up to the third floor and the Reading Rooms…

Given its contents such as American History, Genealogy, Maps, Manuscripts, and small Art and Exhibitions rooms, this is likely to have been a frequent haunt of Lovecraft.

This was the Third Floor Hall, onto which the stairs from the lower floors (seen in the picture) emerged…

Given his constitution he may have rested after climbing all those stairs. Either on the rather chilly stone benches seen above, or on the more warm looking benches in the Picture Gallery…

And then, in one of the wings of the Reading Room Lovecraft, most likely read “The Shining Pyramid” by Machen…

Of course, in May 1925 and later the building would have been far more crowded than shown above.

Having left the building, he might have walked away through the park at the side of the Library…

Though the library closed late, and in May it may have been dark by the time he departed.

Here he is on the “Publick Library” in September 1925, having discovered and closely perused a book there on Providence history, again on the Third Floor of the library…

“Belknap now took an omnibus home, whilst the Old Gentleman kept on walking toward the Publick Library. Having reached that haven, I proceeded to the lair of the Kimball book [he read this… “At the northern end of the Main Reading Room i[n] the room devoted to Local History and Genealogy (No. 328).”] The closing bell drove me forth from Providence to the garish terraces of Babylon at 10 p.m.”

Without actually looking up the details, I’d fairly sure he also drew on the New York libraries for the book The Cancer of Superstition for Houdini. He did the same for his own Supernatural Horror in Literature. While that intensive library-work is beyond the scope of this short blog post, we can assume he delved quite deeply into the Public Library’s arcana. Lovecraft was not then familiar with the ways and devices of heraldry, and he was only later introduced to the details of the art by a friend in the genealogy section of the Providence Public Library.

Today the main “Publick Library” in New York City has strong collections on esoteric magic, spiritualism and witchcraft, divination and Theosophy, as well as a nationally important archive of Lovecraft letters.