Morbid Anatomy Library & Giftshop

The Morbid Anatomy Library has lived and died many times.

Originally started as the library studio of Joanna Ebenstein located in Gowanus, Brooklyn, this institution devoted the beauty found in the human body and mortality has taken many forms. 

Growing from the one room library the collection was reborn as the Morbid Anatomy Museum a 4,200 square foot non-profit institution dedicated to the celebration and exhibition of artifacts, histories and ideas which fall between the cracks of high and low culture, death and beauty, and disciplinary divides. Sadly, like all things, this too died, this particular version of the institution died in 2016. And yet Morbid Anatomy lives. 

After a brief existence within the Greenwood Cemetery, the Morbid Anatomy Library was reborn once again, this time as the Morbid Anatomy Library & Gift shop, now located in Industry City, Brooklyn. This library and shop is open to all who stop by during open hours, and houses extensive collection of books on the natural history, medicine, the occult, horror, hysteria and much more. 

Much like the previous incarnations, the new space house artifacts as well as books, such as "folk art related to healing and mortality, masks, toys, skeletal and wet specimens, wax scientific models, antique artworks, ex votos, devotional objects, and vintage taxidermy."

Come to contemplate your brief mortality. Leave with a Santa Muerte statue and a newfound appreciation of life, death and rebirth.