Nassau Public Library

A two-storey octagonal pink building, oddly proportioned and immediately recognisable, on Shirley Street. Founded as a library in 1873 in what had been the city's main prison. The collection itself is unexceptional, but the building is the most architecturally distinctive small public structure in Nassau.

Open weekdays; entry is free. Ask the librarian to show you the upstairs reading room with its original wooden ceiling. The Bahamiana shelves are useful for visitors looking for local history, fiction, or cookery books not easily found elsewhere.

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A story
The octagonal pink building was originally the colonial **gaol**, built in 1797. The cells became bookshelves in 1873. You can still see the small windows where the prisoners' light came in; some of the shelves are arranged in what used to be solitary confinement.