Back when there were no public libraries, and pre-Melvil Dewey, there were a few private ones, one of the largest and most venerable being the New York Mercantile Library.
Founded in 1820 by merchants and their clerks, the Mercantile last month shut the doors of its eight-story white marble neoclassical building at 17 East 47th Street, which has been its home since 1932.
Never fully making the transition from an age of mercantilism to the information age, the library is looking for a new home in SoHo, TriBeCa or near the New Museum, the contemporary art museum in the Bowery. There, in an appropriately hip location for the 21st Century, they will be known as the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction.
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