Boston - Back Bay: Boston Public Library McKim Building - Mark Twain This sculptural bust of Mark Twain, by Bruce Kueffer, is on display at the Boston Public Library McKim Building. The Boston Public Library McKim Building, located on Boylston Street between Dartmouth and Exeter Streets, was built in 1895 by Charles Follen McKim of McKim, Mead & White. Consisting of a three-story, monumental free-standing block in the style of an Italian Renaissance palace surrounding an open courtyard, McKim's design was one of the earliest successful examples of Renaissance Beaux-Arts Classicism in America, and set the precedent for grand scale urban libraries. In 1972, the Philip Johnson-designed late modernist wing was added to the Central Library location. The Boston Public Library system, established in 1848, was the country's first publicly supported municipal library, its first large library open to the public and its first to allow citizens to borrow books. There are currently twenty-six branches in the system. / VFL.Ru