36 Best Sights in USA

In Philadelphia's main public library building, the grand entrance hall, marble staircase, and enormous reading rooms make the 1927 Greek Revival building look the way libraries should, but it also serves people with facilities such as an area for community gatherings and a Culinary Literacy Center with a kitchen. The children's department houses the city's largest collection of children's books in a made-for-kids setting, and there's a special area for teens. The rare-book department is a beautiful suite of rooms with first editions of Dickens, ancient Sumerian clay tablets, and medieval and other manuscripts, including the only known handwritten copy of Poe's "The Raven." Also here is a taxidermied Grip, Dickens's pet raven. Another treasure, the Edwin S. Fleisher Collection (visitors welcome, but researchers must make appointments), has more than 22,000 circulating orchestral performance sets (a full score and other parts) and is the largest of its kind in the world.   Check the website for events such as author readings, timely special exhibits, and tours of parts of the library.

Philadelphia architect William Strickland designed this 1838 Greek Revival library building in which Edgar Allan Poe courted the poet (and avid reader) Sarah Helen Whitman; the collection here includes a Poe-signed periodical containing "Ulalume," a poem he published anonymously. An 1870s Manet print that illustrated Poe's "The Raven" hangs in the rare book room, which also contains two medieval illuminated manuscripts. Raven signs are posted at eight points of interest on a self-guided library tour. Among them is a special cabinet modeled after an Egyptian temple, which houses the library's multivolume imperial edition of Description de l'Egypte (1809–22), commissioned by Napoléon.

In 1747, Abraham Redwood gave 500 pounds sterling to found a library of arts and sciences; three years later, this Georgian Palladian–style building (with its wood exterior and columns cleverly styled to look like stonework) opened with 751 titles. More than half of the original collection vanished during the British occupation of Newport, though most of it has been recovered or replaced. Paintings on display include five portraits by Gilbert Stuart. Look for the portrait of the Colonial governor's wife, whose low neckline later led to the commissioning of Stuart's daughter, Jane, to paint a bouquet over her cleavage. Self-guided audio tours are available. The library also presents talks by authors, musicians, and historians.

Topped with a swirl like an art-deco nautilus, the library's seven-level glass atrium fills the building with light. Local researchers take advantage of centers dedicated to gay and lesbian, African American, Chinese, and Filipino history. The sixth-floor San Francisco History Center has fun exhibits of city ephemera, including a treat for fans of noir fiction: novelist Dashiell Hammett's typewriter.

Designed by Arthur Rossiter in 1925 in a Spanish–Pueblo Revival style, this was the main Albuquerque library for some 50 years (renowned Santa Fe woodblock artist Gustave Baumann contributed the lovely interior embellishments). Repurposed as the Special Collections division in 1975, the old library now houses local history resources—including an exemplary collection of Albuquerque-theme historical postcards—as well as a small museum comprised of historic printing presses and related ephemera, known as the Center for the Book. Changing exhibits and public programs in the dramatic double-story, viga-lined main reading room are always well presented.

Directly across from the Pacific Design Center, this public library is filled with resources in a floor-to-ceiling glass multistory building. They also have an impressive children's library and LGBTQ+ book collection. Park in the nearby city parking complex.