Argosy Book Store

Half a block from the roar of 59th Street, Argosy occupies six quiet floors of its own narrow building — a rare-book shop founded in 1925 and still run by the founding family, three generations on. The ground floor sets the tone: wooden shelves to the ceiling, ladders on rails, tables of old leather bindings, and bargain carts by the door where used hardcovers go for a few dollars. Upstairs, by elevator, the building opens into whole floors of antique maps and prints, autographs, and first editions.

What makes Argosy worth the detour is that it never became a museum. Everything is for sale, the staff will pull a drawer of 19th-century city maps for you without ceremony, and a beginning collector with modest money is treated as seriously as the auction crowd. You can leave with a $5 engraving or a signed first edition, and either way you've handled the real thing.

It is also, simply, one of the most peaceful interiors in midtown — a working survivor from the era when this stretch of town was thick with book dealers, now nearly the last of its kind.