Yale’s Beinecke Library a Modernist Masterpiece at 60

A few days ago, I was in New Haven, the city of my birth. I’d gone back to Ye Olde North Haven, where I grew up, for a funeral of an old friend and political crony. After the funeral lunch, I visited the Yale University Art Gallery, where I’d spent many happy hours as a Yale student. The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, also a haunt, is celebrating its 60th anniversary. It opened in 1963 but is still young in 2024. When it comes to birthdays, spillage is allowed. I had a lovely visit there as well.

The Beinecke is sublime and the crown jewel among Yale’s batch of masterpiece, post-war buildings. I went there to bathe my mind in its unique interior lighting and to see Douglass, Baldwin, Harrington: The Collections of Walter O. Evans, a clunker of a title, but librarians are librarians not because they know how to compose New York Post headlines.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

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A few days ago, I was in New Haven, the city of my birth. I’d gone back to Ye Olde North Haven, where I grew up, for a funeral of an old friend and political crony. After the funeral lunch, I visited the Yale University Art Gallery, where I’d spent many happy hours as a Yale student. The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, also a haunt, is celebrating its 60th anniversary. It opened in 1963 but is still young in 2024. When it comes to birthdays, spillage is allowed. I had a lovely visit there as well.

The Beinecke is sublime and the crown jewel among Yale’s batch of masterpiece, post-war buildings. I went there to bathe my mind in its unique interior lighting and to see Douglass, Baldwin, Harrington: The Collections of Walter O. Evans, a clunker of a title, but librarians are librarians not because they know how to compose New York Post headlines.