New York Mercantile Library

Prior to their move in early 2018, The Center for Fiction was located at 17 East 47th Street, between Madison and Fifth Avenues in Midtown Manhattan.

[3] It maintains a Reading Room, operates a curated independent bookstore primarily featuring works of fiction, rents space to writers at low cost, and presents literary programs to the public.

[8] Frequent lectures were presented by the library,[10] including by Ralph Waldo Emerson [11] and Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.[12] In addition to reading materials, as of the 1850s the association owned "a cabinet of minerals and shells, a collection of revolutionary medals, miscellaneous coins, various paintings, statue of the 'Dancing Girl Reposing', Minerva, and a bust of Philip Stone.

[8] At its new location, the association offered classes and public lectures, including by Frederick Douglass, William Thackeray, and Mark Twain,[4] and functioned as a cultural center.

The new building featured a reading room on the top floor that was two stories high,[7][19] and was to remain the headquarters for its library operations, which included 7 branches, until 1920, when it relocated to rented space.

Since 2005 known as The Center for Fiction,[1] the organization presents a diverse program of free or low-cost public events, featuring over 100 authors, translators, and critics each year.

In May 2018, the organization announced that it would be moving its headquarters to a new building in Fort Greene, Brooklyn called Caesura and designed by Dattner Architects.

The three-story building will be co-owned with the Mark Morris Dance Group and a real estate company, which will have their own spaces there.