Is Mercantile Library the city's prettiest place?

We celebrate all that is new in this city. There is a joy with each restaurant opening in Over-the-Rhine. Every time a business sets up shop Downtown, it feels like a validation of this place.

But we forget that some of the coolest stuff is the oldest, the most authentic – places like the Mercantile Library, which opened 179 years ago.

After all these years, this place somehow remains an open secret despite the fact that it is in a building on Walnut Street actually named the Mercantile Library Building. Maybe it is because it is tucked away on the 11th floor. Whatever the reason, many people don't know about it or have never been.

That's too bad.

The floors are wood, the windows are gigantic and the air is filled with the unmistakable smell of old books. There are glass floors in the stacks to let light filter through because the library was built before the invention of the light bulb.

It would be wrong, however, to consider this a museum. This is a working library. The circulation is always evolving: There are e-books and audio books and lectures. There will be a graphic novel discussion group Saturday.

The Mercantile Library is not a public or municipal library. It is a members library, with annual dues starting at $55 a year. People who join love books and learning.

"These are people who, in many cases, secretly enjoyed school," said Executive Director Albert Pyle. "In other cases, not secretly."

Others join simply because they love the space. It is one of the great rooms in this city.

Lee Morgan, 44, went to the library one evening 20 years ago to see a presentation by Enquirer cartoonist Jim Borgman. He joined almost immediately.

"I keep telling people it is a place you would never imagine is here," Morgan said.

Morgan is an investment manager, and his phone rings just about all the time. He comes and brings a lunch, he said, to find tranquility and maybe learn something new.

"I'm on the phone all day with people. This is something else," Morgan said. "Maybe I will read a magazine I would not make time for, or check out a book I might otherwise never read."

The Young Mens Mercantile Library was started in 1835 by 45 merchants. These were not doctors or lawyers or people from monied families; they were hustlers and strivers.

"They considered themselves a distinct class," Pyle said. They wanted to better themselves.

"This was for self-help, to educate themselves in their off hours," he said.

The library moved from one location to the next until finding a home on the second floor of a Downtown building in 1869.

The lease for that building was written by the library's attorney, Alphonso Taft. And the father of President William Howard Taft could really write a contract – the lease called for a 10,000-year occupancy and cost $10,000. Do that math; it's $1 per year.

These merchants lived and worked Downtown; trolley tracks ran right in front of the building up Fourth Street. "We were 'New Urbanism' starting in 1835," Pyle said.

Now, with new residents coming to Downtown and Over-the-Rhine, the library is again finding members who walk to the building because they live nearby. "An increasing share of our new members are within walking distance," Pyle said. "We do not keep track of our members' ages, but we are seeing younger people."

Perhaps they should stop keeping it a secret. There are 1,400 memberships and 2,000 members. They get books, sunlight pouring through the windows and access to learning that can be lost in the churn of a busy day. On the calendar this month alone are a book club, a poetry society meeting, the graphic novel discussion, a home tour and a discussion group that meets regularly to talk about Shakespeare. It was sold out.

More are welcome, and Pyle figures the library could handle about twice that many people. More diversity, he says, is an ambition. "If you read for pleasure, if you love to learn, this is your home," he said.

And don't worry about the Alphonso Taft lease running out at the end of 10,000 years.

It is renewable.