The Boston library where you still can borrow a giant puppet

5/11/2026 at 8:48:36 PM

> Beneath the Emmanuel Church on Newbury Street in Boston, tucked away in the basement, sits a library

This is underselling it: it's in a side street off Newbury, where nobody would have any reason to go, with a tiny little door about half the size of all the other doors marked "Puppet Library"[1].

I visited many years ago by complete accident: I was out running with some friends on a Tuesday afternoon, we were going down the public alley because Newbury was heaving, and saw this sign. We wandered in, and...yeah, there's a lot of puppets.

[1]: https://maps.app.goo.gl/pa6sTiQ1cFsp2mqcA

by objclxt

5/11/2026 at 9:39:14 PM

Thanks for that link. I love the sign, it made me laugh.

The sign is hand written, stating:

the

PUPPET

free

LIBRARY

open

TUESDAYS 2-7

so it looks like it’s advertising a puppet free library, as if they had to ban puppets from this particular library.

by wincy

5/11/2026 at 11:02:28 PM

There is actually a phrase "free library" commonly seen in older libraries often called a "Carnegie Free Library" because they were created as a philanthropic project by the industrialist Andrew Carnegie. They are called "free libraries" because many libraries in the 19th century were businesses run rather like video stores (if you can remember those) where you had to pay to check out a book, while Carnegie's were free of charge.

by jhbadger

5/11/2026 at 11:24:15 PM

Indeed, the Romance cognates of "library" even usually mean bookstore (or maybe bookshelf...etymologically it's just a thing that does something vaguely related to books). Most languages where a cognate of "library" rather than "bibliotheque" means primarily a lending library (which still might be paid) picked it up as a loan from English.

by naniwaduni

5/12/2026 at 12:11:11 PM

Many original “libraries” ran on the idea that a book is valuable and rarely new - you’d buy your used copy of Plato, read it, and sell it back for almost what you paid for it. This is infinitesimally different from just renting.

by bombcar

5/12/2026 at 7:13:42 PM

I thought technically a library without puppets would be "puppet-free", but I'm not sure if that's a rule people follow enough to be a rule anymore.

by saghm

5/12/2026 at 12:01:10 AM

I lived on Gloucester and comm ave for years, walked those streets daily. I never knew until reading this.

by RobRivera

5/11/2026 at 8:11:09 PM

as a child I found puppet exposure disturbing and semi traumatic

by semiinfinitely

5/12/2026 at 1:36:08 AM

I have an old puppet of animal from the Muppets. He's wearing a skateboard shop shirt and has a little skateboard. Just the sort of thing you could picture sitting in a window in the late 70's.

My oldest was FUCKING TERRIFIED of the puppet out of nowhere when he was like 5. He wouldn't sleep unless we could prove that it was no longer in the house.

You just never know what's going to make a formative memory until it's far too late.

by Loughla

5/11/2026 at 10:38:37 PM

I'm on the opposite end of this spectrum. Puppets are absurd, hysterical, and it used to be a family thing to get together and make puppets every Christmas. I'd try to make the goofiest looking puppet possible. The last one I made has a wide brimmed hat, blond hair, glasses, and the weirdest looking braided mustache. Oh, and ping pong balls for eyes.

It makes me chuckle every time I see it.

by all2