The Library

En route to Café Minerva (which I've talked about before here), I pass this gorgeous building on the corner of West 10th and 6th Avenue, which reminds me an awful lot of a lighthouse:  

It turns out that the building is the Jefferson Market Library. The lighthouse-like structure on top used be the fire lookout tower. It used to be the Jefferson Market Courthouse, and, in a fit of judicial expediency, there was also a prison housed adjacent to the building.  

It looks like I picked a good time to discover the building -- Open House New York, a time you can visit some NYC cultural/architectural landmarks otherwise closed, takes place two weeks from now.