As part of the Conde Nast Traveler listing of 17 Best Museums in Boston. By Andrew Sessa and Elizabeth Wellington

Excerpt:

Stately repository of Boston history, this private library and event space holds more than books.

Zoom out. What’s this place all about?

Part museum, part library, and part members club, the Boston Athenaeum has welcomed bibliophiles, art lovers, and other intellectually curious types since 1805. (A drafter of the Massachusetts constitution and President John Adams’s secretary were among its founders, and members since include Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.) Today, its landmarked 1849 neoclassical headquarters in Beacon Hill—which unveiled a $17 million, historically sensitive restoration, renovation, and expansion in fall 2022—welcomes its 6,000-plus card-carrying members to check books out from its stacks, and it encourages the public to come in and check out what the place is all about, too. Walk right in and buy a ticket for access to the street-level main floor’s double-height Bayard Henry Long Room, hung with paintings by the likes of John Singer Sargent and Gilbert Stuart, as well as a gallery space that shows off temporary exhibitions of art, books, manuscripts and more, plus the Children’s Library, filled with toys and games in addition to books, of course.

To read the full article in Conde Nast Traveler.