What makes Christopher Mcnally with Karpeles Manuscript Museum Library a good neighbor?

Ever stood inches from a page that redirected history? We sit down with director Christopher McNally inside a 101-year-old Pittsburgh church reborn as the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum—a quiet, free space where original documents from Columbus, Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great, Beethoven, Chopin, and even J.R.R. Tolkien are preserved and shared with anyone curious enough to look closely.

Christopher traces how a mathematician and real estate investor, the late Dr. David Karpeles, turned a collecting passion into a coast-to-coast museum network, and how his family now curates rotating exhibits that land big ideas in your hands. We walk through the current lineup- pre–Revolutionary Stamp Act artifacts, European monarchy materials, classical music manuscripts, and age-of-exploration logs- and preview a timely new exhibit on man’s inhumanity to man, including the Holocaust and the traumas written into North America’s past. Along the way, we talk about why primary sources cut through distortion, how handwriting itself encodes culture (from Cyrillic scripts to looping cursive), and why even a quick roadside stop can become a moment of reflection that lingers.

If you love history, music, literature, or simply the feeling of learning something real, this conversation maps out how to visit, what to look for, and how to read a manuscript for insight rather than trivia. You’ll also hear how locals, travelers, and former parishioners rediscover the space and find meaning in the quiet. Subscribe for more neighborhood stories, share this episode with a friend who loves museums, and leave a review to help others find the show- then tell us: which document would you want to see up close?

To learn more about Karpeles Manuscript Museum Library go to:

https://www.karpeles.com/visit/pittsburgh-pennsylvania/

Karpeles Manuscript Museum Library

(407) 376-7705