Historic libraries bring modern comfort to book lovers and history buffs in New England

BOSTON (AP) — When David Arsenault takes down a worn, leather-bound 19th-century book from the winding shelves of the Boston Athenaeum, he feels a sense of awe — like he’s handling an artifact in a museum.

Many of the half a million books that line the library's seemingly endless maze of reading room shelves and stacks were printed before his great-great-grandparents were born. Among fraying copies of Charles Dickens novels, Civil War-era biographies and town genealogies, everything has a history and a heartbeat.

“It almost feels like you shouldn’t be able to take the books out of the building, it feels so special,” said Arsenault, who visits the institution adjacent to Boston Common a few times a week. “You do feel like, and in a lot of ways, you are, in a museum — but it’s a museum you get to not feel like you’re a visitor in all the time, but really a part of.”

The more than 200-year-old institution is one of only about 20 member-supported private libraries in the U.S. dating back to the 18th- and 19th-centuries. Called athenaeums, a Greek word meaning “temple of Athena,” the concept predates the traditional public library most Americans recognize today. The institutions were built by merchants, doctors, writers, lawyers and ministers who wanted to not only create institutions for reading — then an expensive and difficult-to-access hobby — but also space to explore culture and debate.

Many of these athenaeums still play a vibrant role in their communities.

Patrons gather to play games, join discussions on James Joyce, or even research family history. Others visit to explore some of the nation’s most prized artifacts, such as the largest collection from George Washington ’s personal library at Mount Vernon at the Boston Athenaeum.

In addition to conservation work, institutions acquire and uplift the work of more modern creatives who may have been overlooked. The Boston Athenaeum recently co-debuted an exhibit by painter Allan Rohan Crite, who died in 2007 and used his canvas to depict the joy of Black life in the city.

One thing binds all athenaeums together: books and people who love them.

“The whole institution is built around housing the books,” said Matt Burriesci, executive director of Providence Athenaeum in Rhode Island. “The people who come to this institution really appreciate just holding a book in their hands and reading it the old-fashioned way.”

Built to mimic an imposing Greek temple, staffers at the Providence Athenaeum often talk about the joy of watching people enter for the first time.

Visitors must climb a series of cold, granite steps. Only then are they met with a thick wooden door that ushers them into a warm world filled with cozy reading nooks, hidden desks to leave secret messages to fellow patrons, and almost every square inch bursting with books.

“It’s the actual time capsule of people’s reading habits over 200 years,” Burriesci said, while pointing to a first-edition of Little Women, where the pages and spine proudly showcase years of being well read.

Many athenaeums are designed to pay tribute to Greek influence and their namesake, the goddess of wisdom. In Boston, a city once dubbed “the Athens of America,” visitors to the athenaeum are greeted by a nearly 7-foot-tall (2.1-meter-tall) bronze statue of Athena Giustiniani.

The building is as much an art museum as it is a library.

“So many libraries were built to be functional — this library was built to inspire,” said John Buchtel, the Boston Athenaeum’s curator of rare books and head of special collections.

The 12-level building includes five gallery floors where ornate busts of writers and historical figures decorate reading rooms with wooden tables overlooked by book-lined pathways reachable by spiral and hidden staircases.

Natural light shines in from large windows where guests can look down to see one of Boston's most historic cemeteries where figures like Paul Revere, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock are buried.

“We’re able to leave many of these things out for people to peruse, and I think people can often get curious about something and just follow their curiosity into things that they didn’t even know that they were going to be fascinated by,” said Boston Athenaeum executive director Leah Rosovsky.

When athenaeums were founded, they were exclusive spaces that only people with education and money could access.

Some are now free. Most are open to the public for day passes and tours. Memberships to the Boston Athenaeum can range from $17 to $42 a month per person, depending on whether the patron is under 40 or is sharing the membership with family members.

Charlie Grantham, a wedding photographer and aspiring novelist, said she first visited during one of the institution’s annual community days, where the public can explore for free. She said she was surprised by how accessible it was and describes the space as “Boston’s best kept secret — an oasis in the middle of the city.”

“It’s just so peaceful. Even if I’m still working... doing things I’m stressed out about at home, when I’m here, there’s like a stillness about it and things feel more manageable, things feel enjoyable here,” she said.

Some people visit every day to work remotely, read or socialize, said Salem Athenaeum executive director Jean Marie Procious.

“We do have a loneliness crisis,” she said. “And we want to encourage people to come and see us as a space to meet up with others and a safe environment that you’re not expected to buy a drink or buy a meal.”

Guests read and work at the fifth-floor reading room, designated a "silent space", at the Boston Athenaeum, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Bound copies of Alexander Hamilton's papers are displayed on a shelf at the Boston Athenaeum, a private library, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Little Nell, left, a sculpture of the character from Charles Dickens's "The Old Curiosity Shop", is displayed at the Boston Athenaeum, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Two pedestrians walk past the Boston Athenaeum, one of the oldest independent libraries in the United States, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Portraits of Mass. Rep. Charles Lewis Mitchell, left, and Dr. John V. de Grasse are shown from an photograph album from the personal collection of anti-slavery activist Harriet Hayden, which was printed in the 1860's, at the Boston Athenaeum, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

A visitor browses recent publications at the Boston Athenaeum, a private library, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

A statue of George Washington on horseback is displayed in the private library at the Boston Athenaeum, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

George Washington's personal copy of the 1796 book "Collection of the Speeches of the President of the United States" is shown at the Boston Athenaeum, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Visitors walk though the Granary Burying Ground, which includes the graves of John Hancock, Samuel Adams and Paul Revere, seen through a window at the Boston Athenaeum, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

NEW YORK (AP) — Technology stocks are recovering some of their losses on Friday, and bitcoin has halted its plunge, as Wall Street bounces back from big losses taken earlier in the week, at least for now.

The S&P 500 rose 0.9% and was heading for just its second gain in the last eight days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 610 points, or 1.2%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.7% higher.

Chip companies helped drive the gains, and Nvidia rose 2.9% to trim into its loss for the week, which came into the day at just over 10%. Broadcom climbed 3.4% to eat into its drop for the week of 6.3%.

They benefited from hopes for continued spending by companies on chips to drive their forays into artificial-intelligence technology. Amazon, for example, said late Thursday it expects to spend about $200 billion on investments this year to take advantage of “seminal opportunities like AI, chips, robotics, and low earth orbit satellites.”

Such heavy spending, similar to what Alphabet announced just a day earlier, is creating concerns of their own, though. The question is whether all those dollar will prove to be worth it through bigger profits in the future. With doubt remaining about that, Amazon’s stock tumbled 9.6%.

The tentative trading means the S&P 500 is still flirting with its worst weekly loss since November, and its third in the last four weeks. Besides worries about big spending on AI by Big Tech companies, whose stocks are the most influential on Wall Street, concerns about AI potentially stealing customers away from software companies also hurt the market through the week.

Bitcoin, meanwhile, steadied itself somewhat following a weekslong plunge that had sent it more than halfway below its record set in October. It climbed back above $68,000 after briefly dropping around $60,000 late Thursday.

Prices in the metals market also calmed a bit following their own wild swings. Gold rose 0.7% to $4,924.40 per ounce, while silver fell 3.2%.

Their prices suddenly ran out of momentum last week following jaw-dropping rallies, driven by the desire among investors to own something safe amid worries about political turmoil, a U.S. stock market that critics called expensive and huge debt loads for governments worldwide. By January, though, prices were surging so quickly that critics called it unsustainable.

On Wall Street, the recovery for bitcoin helped stocks of companies enmeshed in the crypto economy. Robinhood Markets jumped nearly 12% for the biggest gain in the S&P 500. Crypto trading platform Coinbase Global rose 6.6%. Strategy, the company that’s made a business of buying and holding bitcoin, soared 15.1%.

In stock markets abroad, indexes ticked higher in Europe.

That was even though Stellantis, the auto giant whose stock trades in Milan, lost roughly a quarter of its value after saying it would take a charge of 22 billion euros, or $26 billion, as it dials back its electric vehicle production. The automaker acknowledged “over-estimating the pace of the energy transition” and said it was resetting its business “to align the company with the real-world preferences of its customers.”

Stocks fell across much of Asia, but Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.8%. It benefited from a 2% climb for Toyota Motor, which said CEO Koji Sato will step down in April and will be replaced by the company’s chief financial officer, Kenta Kon.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.20% from 4.21% late Thursday.

AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed.

Traders Edward McCarthy, left, and Edward Curran work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Bob's Discount Furniture President & CEO Bill Barton rings a ceremonial bell on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as his company's IPO begins trading, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Trader Robert FInnerty Jr. works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Trader Michael Conlon, right, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Trader Jeffrey Vazquez works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)