‘Paper city’: New York ‘library’ holds 3.5 million pages of Epstein files | Human Rights Issues

One mile from the Manhattan jail where convicted felon Jeffrey Epstein was found He was found dead in 2019The Tribeca museum at 101 Reade Street has been transformed into a multi-million dollar event space.

More than 3.5 million pages of legal documents published by the United States Department of Justice have been printed, bound and stored in 3,437 volumes to cover the walls of the room from floor to ceiling.

The exhibition, called “The Donald J Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room”, was organized by the Institute for Primary Facts, a non-profit that claims to focus on transparency and anti-corruption.

Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges in July 2017 before hanging himself in his New York prison a month later, denying his victims justice. The “reading room” is an attempt to shed light on the many cases linked to Epstein that have yet to go to trial.

The shelves contain documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, along with timelines, handwritten visitor logs, and memorial sites dedicated to survivors and victims.

Since opening two weeks ago, the building has attracted many visitors, including survivors of several Epstein-related crimes.

Lara Blume McGee, who was only 17 years old when she was abused by Epstein, visited the reading room last week.

“I found something brutal in the Trump-Epstein reading room,” Blume McGee told Al Jazeera. “Proof that our lives were important enough to be collected, recorded, and displayed.”

He described entering the room as walking through a “city of paper”, with three and a half million pages on display, a sight that hit him “like a physical shock”. What he remembers best is silence.

He said: “It was just silence. “Line by line, everyone is building a volume of life, a name, a day that should not have happened if the US government did something when it was told to the FBI in 1996.”

The large size of the archives is intentional. Organizers say the format of the documents forces visitors to not only look at the scale of Epstein’s crimes, but also the number of lives they have affected.

Thousands of victims have come forward as a result of Epstein’s abuse. One of the most famous survivors, Virginia Giuffre, died by suicide in April 2025.

David Garrett, co-founder of the show, said the project was built around survivors from the beginning.

“We focus on victims and survivors more than anything else,” Garrett said. “The key is transparency and accountability.”

Garrett described the exhibition as part of a larger project to create “pop-up museums” aimed at making people think about corruption and institutional failure.

“Our goal is how can we get people angry so we can force Congress and the Department of Justice to be more transparent and hopefully finally hold them accountable,” he said.

The process of collecting the archives was confusing. Garrett said organizers downloaded the files from the Justice Department in March, believing they had received redacted documents. It was only after they published the collection that they discovered that many of the names of the survivors still appeared in the files.

“What appears to have happened is that the Department of Justice changed its search function instead of redoing the names,” Garrett said. The names of the survivors have not been released while the names of witnesses and their associates have been withheld.

Finding a place was also difficult. Garrett said several communities backed away after agreeing to host the show, fearing controversy or retaliation. The Tribeca palace eventually became the fifth location the designers approached.

Despite these challenges, survivors and supporters quickly embraced the project.

On Tuesday, the building became a 24-hour reading center for files led by survivors, advocates and supporters.

Dani Bensky, who survived Epstein, opened the broadcast on Monday afternoon, standing at a podium inside the auditorium with one of the white papers in her hand.

His reading marked the beginning of an ongoing public review of what came from the files – an attempt, organizers said, to ensure that the documents are no longer buried in silence.

Throughout the house, visitors have left flowers, handwritten notes, and messages of sadness and anger.

Garrett recalled one woman who spent hours silently walking through space before telling organizers that she herself had survived a rape.

“He said it helped him realize he was being watched,” Garrett said. “That meant a lot to us.”

For Blume McGee, that visual sensation brings both relief and frustration.

“For years we were told to keep quiet, accept the settlement, move on,” he told Al Jazeera. “Seeing our truths held in public archives became a long-awaited acknowledgment of our pain, our torture and our reality.”

But he warned that records alone are not fair.

“This show gives real hope because the record is now indisputable,” said Blume McGee. “Finally, there is action: documentation, visibility, evidence.” But the same files show the failure of the system – how many doors were closed, how many people escaped detection.”

“Seeing without results only worsens the wound,” he added. “We need both: the files on the table and the government to take action – to investigate, to prosecute, to change – so that the ‘last seen’ is safe.”