Built as the West 135th Street Branch Library, the former Schomburg Collection building at 103 West 135th Street was designed in 1904 by the eminent firm of McKim, Mead & White. Small and dignified, the structure is one of the eleven elegant neo-Classical buildings that the firm designed for the New York City Public Library system under a generous grant from Andrew Carnegie.
Located in the heart of Harlem, the Library Branch became a center of black cultural events during the 1920s, as the well-known Schomburg Collection on black history and culture, housed in the building, served as a magnet to countless intellectuals drawn to the area during the “Harlem Renaissance.” Distinguished by a fine architectural design, the building is also nationally significant as a cultural center and a site where the documentation of the black experience was a long and important tradition.