Behind this celebrated NYC institution was a guarded yet glamorous librarian who made headlines.

One of the highest-paid women in America, she made groundbreaking acquisitions that cost tens of thousands of dollars.

The books she hand-picked would culminate in being known as “one of the Finest Private Collections of Costly Volumes in the World.”

Her audacious coups instilled fear among veteran art-collector rivals.

She wielded such expertise that J.P. Morgan, the wealthiest man in the world, wouldn't make an acquisition without consulting her first. 

Her name was Belle da Costa Greene, the Morgan Library & Museum's first director and one of NYC’s most extraordinary hidden figures.

But very few knew who she really was. 

The daughter of Harvard's first Black graduate, she changed her name and burned her journals to take her truth to the grave. 

A secret that could have cost her everything she built.