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New Yorkers are proud of many things: their bagels, their transportation system (sort of) and their place in literary history. The city is, after all, the setting to so many wonderful books.
It should come as no surprise, then, that, at least according to TikTok, NYC is home to three of the best libraries in the United States.
Travel website Islands took a deep look at #BookTok (284.9 billion views) and #LibraryTok (337.9 million views), specifically monitoring a surge in interest in all things literary across Google search data as well, to come up with a list of the 12 most popular libraries in the U.S.
The first New York entry on the ranking is—surprise, surprise—the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of the New York Public Library by Bryant Park. The institution's flagship branch was declared a National Historic Landmark in the 1960s and is still one of the most instantly recognizable structures across the city as a whole. Who can forget those iconic steps leading into the building?
The Brooklyn Public Library also made the list at number seven. Although the survey doesn't specify which branch is most popular (did you know there are 62 in total?), we suspect it to be Central Library at 10 Grand Army Plaza, which welcomes a reported one million annual visitors.
Also on the list is the Morgan Library and Museum, which ranks number ten. Found in Manhattan's Murray Hill neighborhood at 225 Madison Avenue by 37th Street, the venue was built in 1906 as the private library of the banker J.P. Morgan. To this day, the main internal room will take any book lover's breath away.
A bit about the methodology: the website gathered data from relevant hashtags and then ranked each library based on the total number of views it received on TikTok as of August 2024. The analysis also took into account user engagement, Tripadvisor reviews and more.
Suddenly, we're itching to read some classics.
The 12 most popular libraries in the U.S. according to TikTok
1. Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
2. Boston Public Library in Boston, Massachusetts
3. Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California
4. Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at the New York Public Library in New York
5. George Peabody Library in Baltimore, Maryland
6. Geisel Library in San Diego, California
7. Brooklyn Public Library in Brooklyn, NY
8. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in New Haven, Connecticut
9. Los Angeles Central Library in Los Angeles, California
10. Morgan Library and Museum in New York
11. Cleveland Public Library in Cleveland, Ohio
12. Seattle Public Library in Seattle, Washington