The Pursuit of Educating

cats
The bookstore cats lounging among GBM’s shelves

Each bookstore owner has a definition of literature promoted in his or her shop. For example, in Parnassus on Wheels, the fictional bookseller Roger Mifflin has his own interpretation of literature’s function in society. The character believes that the book is meant to enlighten, enrich, and connect its audience, stating, “there is none so grateful as the man to whom you have given just the book his soul needed and he never knew it” (Morley).  In conjunction with this interpretation, many believe that the bookstore should be a place for people to learn which literature should be read and which has less value. Such was the belief possessed by Frances Steloff, who owned and operated Gotham Book Mart for forty seven years. Steloff fits this mold by influencing her customers to read what she sees as “real literature” in her shop.  Steloff’s focus on modernist literature, which experimented with new styles and concepts, clashed with her Orthodox Jewish background. Steloff’s ultimate goal was to develop the book into a higher form of art and to educate those around her, which parallels her personal history as well as her business plan at GBM.

Frances Steloff in front of Gotham at its third location in the Diamond District
Frances Steloff in front of GBM at its third location in the Diamond District.

Gotham Book Mart was a hub for avant garde literature, in addition to being  a center of culture. There were many factors that contributed to the success, popularity, and importance of Gotham Book Mart.  Some of these include the literary climate of the early- and mid-20th century, its locations in the heart of New York City, the demand for banned books, as well as the need for a location for authors and artists to congregate.  Frances  Steloff, however, stands above these factors as being integral to the success of GBM.  It  would be misguided to suggest that one person could be the sole cause of Gotham’s success; there were many ingredients that went into the mix. However, Steloff’s combination of ambition, persistence, and business-savvy was the kingpin that held the pieces in place. Even after she sold Gotham Book Mart in 1967, the spirit of her bookshop largely remained the same.

Steloff was born in 1887 to a poor Jewish immigrant family in Saratoga Springs, NY. She attended school until the the seventh grade, when she was removed in order to work for a family in the Boston area. Although Steloff’s education ceased, her family kept her intellectually occupied by exposing her to literature.  Her father, for example, was a lover of literature who passed his passion onto her.  Steloff’s father loved books and would pour over them for hours.  There is no doubt that this father fostered his daughter’s passion for reading with his behavior (Rodgers 30).   Even when she was a child, Steloff’s relationship with books was certainly one of love and not solely function.

As if inspired by the strong female characters in the classic novels Steloff read after being pulled out of school, she left her family at the age of twenty to move to New York City.  Steloff often turned to these strong women during her childhood, where she was faced “adult experiences before she ever entered the teens” (24).  These literary and tragic moments “taught her to be independent” (24).  By the time she was able to escape her family in Boston and move in with her aunt in New York City, it was 1907.  The city itself provided her with  a job selling corsets in Loeser’s Department Store.

gotham front
An artist’s rendering of the culture center that was GBM

The break in her education, the inheritance of a passion for literature, and her experience working at Loeser’s, as well as various publishing houses, inspired Steloff to open Gotham Book Mart in 1920. GBM’s first location, a basement-apartment-turned-store at the heart of New York City’s Theater District, became a defining learning experience for Steloff.   Not only did she learn about various elements of theater by reading each book that she had in her stock, she also learned to base her business plan —from inventory to events—off of her customers.

Gotham_Book_Mart_Wise_Men_Fish_Here_Sign
GBM’s iconic sign harps back to the store’s culture of enlightening customers

GBM’s customers, like Steloff, cherished books on an intellectual and perhaps even spiritual level, instead of just in a utilitarian sense. Often, Steloff purchased the last of someone’s print run and stored those books in the cellar of her shop.  She would keep them in storage until enough people deemed them valuable enough to purchase. Books weren’t valued for their practical worth, but for their literary value or ability to enlighten the reader. In this way, books were only valuable if someone ascribed value to them.   In the same way her family members were literary guides to her, she was a guide to her customers.  This role allowed for Gotham Book Mart to be so successful that it had to take on a newer, bigger location.

Gotham Book Mart spent three years at its second location on 45th St., where it erected its famous “Wise Men Fish Here” sign. This location was also where the tradition of Gotham Book Mart’s “garden parties” started.  They began as a series of lectures but eventually became occasions for book releases.  While Steloff quickly outgrew this location, her focus on educating her customers through modernist literature continued to define her business.  This was not an easy task for a woman entrepreneur during this time, but can be compared to experiences of other female bookstore owners, such as Madge Jenison.  Both Jenison and Steloff opened their bookstores in New York in the 1920s.  In Madge Jenison’s Sunwise Turn, she talks about this same drive to influence the habits of customers and establish a bookstore.  Madge Jenison’s bookstore, like GBM, was a place where people flocked, with the aim of becoming a part of an enlightened atmosphere.   This modern-enlightened feel was emphasized by GBM’s contemporary inventory.

The traditions that GBM established in its first two locations carried over to its third location on 47th St. when it moved in 1946.  This sparkling address in the Diamond District was where the store called home the longest.  When she moved to the bigger and more spacious building in the heart of Manhattan’s Diamond District, her Jewish heritage became an advantage. When the German Nazis invaded the Netherlands as well as Belgium, thousands of Orthodox Jews fled to the United States and brought their diamond businesses with them when they settled in Manhattan. After fleeing from her Jewish heritage as a young woman, Steloff found herself surrounded by a Jewish community once again after moving GBM into the Diamond District.  Although there’s no evidence that she attempted to connect with this community, neighboring Jewish store owners were welcoming to the female, Jewish small business owner.


View GBM Locations 2 in a larger map

The new, spacious building was physically larger, but it remained stacked high with books. Additionally, the shop was still a meeting place and sanctuary for literary minds.  The homey, yet educated atmosphere created a type of safe haven, a sanctuary, in which readers and writers were able to escape mainstream literature in an effort to further enlighten themselves with contemporary, repressed books.

Steloff’s childhood influences were apparent in the layout of GBM’s third location. The sanctuary was organized into three categories: new, secondhand, and rare. New books were displayed towards the front of the store.  These were typically literary magazines or books by new artists that Steloff believed in and thought deserving of some help in starting their careers. Meanwhile, rare books were kept in a locked case, and customers weren’t allowed to open the case or handle the books without employee supervision. Keeping “high value” books in cases and not allowing people to touch them was a tradition Steloff learned from her father.  When she was a child, her father “forbid her” to touch the books he saw as having a high value, and also kept them in a case for his own use.  While her father’s shelved books were religious, such as the Torah (29), Steloff placed this value on contemporary literature.

Along with contemporary literature, Steloff firmly believed in stocking banned or censored books. These books wouldn’t have necessarily been the kind of books that were read or promoted by the typical Jewish woman. Steloff, though, was by no means typical, and put herself on the line with the law for the kind of literature she believe should have a chance to be read, regardless of its controversial content.

According to Brown, there is a difference in value between what he calls ‘objects’ and ‘things.’ Those who frequented GBM, such as W.H. Auden, Marianne Moore, and Dylan Thomas, would consider books to be objects as opposed to things because “as they circulate through our lives, we look through objects (to see what they disclose about history, society, nature, or culture-above all, what they disclose about us), but we only catch a glimpse of things” (Brown 4). Books can be used in order to look deeper into ourselves and to understand something about society that we can’t get elsewhere.  Therefore, the book collector/purveyor has “a relationship to objects which does not emphasize their functional, utilitarian value—that is, their usefulness—but studies and loves them as the scene, the stage, of their useful fate” (Benjamin 60).  During her adulthood Steloff, then, was seen as the director who showed customers the books in which he or she could find this insight.

Gotham_Book_Mart
A display of “censored” books at the third location of GBM.

Additionally, Steloff was deeply invested in fostering the growth and promotion of up-and-coming artists—she shared Tebbel’s belief that “as the middle [wo]man…the bookseller is not only the conduit between author and audience, but in the conduct of business [she] is in a position to influence that relationship profoundly, whether for good or ill” (17). Steloff thought of literature as knowledge that connected people, catering to intellectual thinkers and societies. This speaks to the culture that GBM also embodied.  This culture being that the customer should be enlightened by the literature he or she discovers in the store.  In order to accomplish this, Steloff saw herself as a guide to introduce what she considered “real” literature.

Today, the narrow building at 41 W. 47th Street in the Diamond district is no longer Gotham Book Mart, but continues to cater to the community’s needs.  GBM’s former location hosts a jewelry store and a kosher Middle Eastern restaurant.  The success of these businesses parallels the area’s demographic, which is mostly Jewish white-collar workers. The reason these workers reside and shop in the district is its close vicinity, a two block walk, to Rockefeller Center, Madison Avenue, and Bryant Park.  These locations are like where this population works.  As a restaurant and jewelry store, GBM’s former location continues to act as a place of service.  However, instead of serving education, it provides food and jewelry.  The Middle Eastern restaurant advertises “speedy service,” which fits the needs of business people in need of fast service, close to work during their brief lunch breaks.  Meanwhile, the diamond store provides a place for white-collar workers and tourists to purchase fine jewelry.  To this day, the building hosts small businesses with Jewish owners.


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Young women at a booksigning in GBM, a part of the literary connections Steloff wanted to promote.

Altogether, GBM’s culture of serving customers via enlightenment and education found in books spotlights the reason for the bookstore’s early success that started at the first location.   GBM was “the material setting for social relations-the actual shape of place with which people conduct their lives as individuals… It is clear that places almost always have a concrete form…  Places then, are material things” (Cresswell 7).  In that way, it became a place where people could come together for social interactions and learning.  Truly, GBM was a community and “a physical place and a set of ideals juxtaposed to the world…implies social bonds based on effective ties and mutual support” (Miller 119).  Customers in societies, as well as Steloff herself, supported each other’s learning in this social space.  Due to this mutual support between Steloff and her customers, GBM was able to be successful.  Upon opening her first store, Steloff asked a dear friend how she would know what books to sell.  His reply was one that created GBM’s definition of literature, and ultimately the culture of her bookstore: “Your customers will educate you.”  This advice, and lifelong pursuit of education, shaped Steloff’s role as well as the purpose, culture, and goals of GBM.

 

Sources

Book / Articles

Brown, Bill. “Thing Theory.” Critical Inquiry Vol. 28, No. 1. p 1-22.

Cresswell, Tim. Place: A Short Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2004. Print.

Madge Jenison. The Sunwise Turn.

Miller, Laura J. Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Print.

Morley, Christopher. Parnassus on Wheels. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1955. Print.

Rogers, W. G. Wise Men Fish Here: The Story of Frances Steloff and the Gotham Book Mart. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965. Print.

Images in Text:

http://hc-blackmilk.xf.cz/gotham-book-mart

http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/bookseller-and-author-frances-steloff-standing-in-front-of-news-photo/50417272

http://www.tom-kerr.com/page7/files/8427563b14353959c98c6dd785248334-8.html

http://home.earthlink.net/~eichfr/photos.htm

Images in Timeline

Loeser’s <http://cdn.dipity.com/uploads/events/dcb2c00310b93e48a857afbee77c70e1_1M.png>

“Wise Men…” <http://cdn.dipity.com/uploads/events/83e49a7624ccfb61d1a79d2abb2b66a0_1M.png>

Joyce <http://cdn.dipity.com/uploads/events/c6408d111cb5c59bc8455f5c6b6f4321_1M.png>

Store Closing <http://cdn.dipity.com/uploads/events/380d3bed01747b007a0cc0488ecf3c75_1M.png>

UPenn Crest <http://cdn.dipity.com/uploads/events/780042afcde03fd8c22b59da65057c81_1M.png>

 

Thirteen-by-Fifteen: A Look At GBM’s First Location

In 1920, Frances Steloff paid the first month’s rent for a basement apartment that she turned into a bookstore, she called Gotham Books and Art. Her first payment of $75 covered a twelve-by-fifteen feet sales floor, a three-by-three feet window display, and a ten-by-fifteen feet kitchen that she could gain access to if need be. Six months after her first payment, her stock of 175 books increased and began to overflow the sale floor. Steloff’s reaction was to get access to the kitchen area and use it as a secondary sales floor for her rare and out-of-print books.

Feel free to run your cursor over the floor plan above. The black circles indicated stories and information about the rooms and furniture. In contrast, the green circles describe my own narrative and thoughts on the place and it’s decor.

The main sale floor was divided into sides by an eight-by-three table directly in the middle. At the center of this table was Steloff’s working desk. Additionally, the two sides acted as bookshelves. On this table, books were organized with the title and front cover facing upward, not with the spine facing the ceiling. Once this table became full, Steloff piled additional books on top of each other. Having two separate sides to the bookstore outlined two major goals of GBM, to allow customers a place to look at and purchase books, as well as provide customers a space to read, discuss, and enjoy those books. Lastly, this separation acted as the only control Steloff had over the traffic flow. Therefore, customers had the freedom to treat GBM as a place to quickly buy a book and leave, as well as a place to linger.

The side that exhibited the goal of finding and purchasing books had five five-by-five feet wooden bookshelves lining the wall.  Originally, books on these shelves had the front cover facing toward the center of the sales floor, not spine-outward. Customers would comment that although it made the small collection take up more space, it put a large focus on the furniture itself: “To be sure, the store didn’t look empty. You might have wondered whether the furniture was there to aid in selling books, or the books were in the background for selling the furniture. She could fill up about five five-foot shelves provided many books were displayed the wide-way—front out instead of spine out” (Rogers 64). catsArranging books in this manner changed as she added more books to her collection. Not only did the books line shelves standing vertically with their spines outward, they also layered horizontally on top of one another, piling on the top of the shelves until they touched the ceiling.  Although it was reported that as the store gathered more inventory, it appeared messy, Steloff had a distinct order in which she would categorize the books into sections based on topic or cost.

In regards to stock at this location, Steloff attended to a specific clientele interested in theater, art, and design: “Thus not preference but haphazard pressures turned her into a specialist in two profitable fields: art and theater. As Mischke had foretold, her customers educated her” (Rogers 74). While she focused her stock around her customer base, Steloff had a direct relationship with each book that became part of her original collection: “Once upon a time she had read every book she owned: the James, the Browning, and all those included in the original stock. But such a detailed familiarity couldn’t be kept up. It was impossible in spite of the fact that all the books were the kind she loved” (Rodgers 77). Keeping a relationship with her collection speaks the idea that things, like books, create identity: “…identity, whether cultural or personal, presupposes acts of collection, gathering up possessions in arbitrary systems of value and meaning” (Clifford 217). Before Steloff would allow these books to represent her and her business, she needed to familiarize herself with the collection.

The second half of the store provided more of a homey feeling, that that invited customers to linger, shop, and chat during their time at GBM. Although this side also had a five-by-five feet bookshelf, it hosted to other furniture commonly found in homes. One of these was a furnace. Although this furnace was not added by Steloff, it served multiple purposes in the shop. For example, while providing heat to the small sales floor, the furnace added to the homey environment. Another furniture item in the shop that added to the ambiance was straight-chairs. GBM started with only three chairs for customers, and during the late night hours they became an essential place for academic and leisurely conversation among actors and artists. Eventually, one straight-chair had to be used as an extension of the long middle table and began to hold stacks of books. While the chair gained a new use, Steloff realized the importance of having somewhere for customers to sit, and added a rocking chair to the space.

gotham front

Steloff effectively utilized the front of her store as well. The three steps leading customers from the street toward the front door was surrounded by two bookshelves. These bookshelves held book jackets, pamphlets, fliers, photographs, etc: “The entrance is booby-trapped. On one side of book jackets in the show window distracts the eye…They can draw the incautious browser’s attention hazardously away from the couple of steps down, the ninety degree left turn and the half step up that guide him into the Gotham Book Mart” (Rodgers 5). This outdoor collection served many purposes for the bookstore. One of these purposes was to attract customers inward via colorful paper flaps blowing from the wind. In addition to the odd movements and colors attracting customers, many people walking by would ask about or comment on what happened to the outdoor collection when it started to rain or snow. Due to the frequency of these questions and comments, Steloff was able to give her storefront and herself voice before meeting the customer through a meaningful pun that followed the store through its advancement: “We take them in.” A second purpose was to have the storefront define the shop as a bookstore. This was especially important since this storefront was owned by a tailor before Gotham’s arrival.

 

Beside the bookshelves sat a three-by-three foot window display that jetted outward toward the street. Steloff put a small curtain in the window display to demonstrate the established homey atmosphere. In addition, she themed the window display around popular or expensive books. Her emphasis on these books exhibited a hierarchy in her collection: “All such collections embody hierarchies of value, exclusions, rule-governed territories of the self” (Clifford 219). By keeping books that she defined as higher in the hierarchy in the front on display (in contrast to having low-value collections kept on outdoor bookshelves), Steloff identified herself and her store as a place where customers can find top value books. Her customers desire to purchase these books, in addition to her own drive to keep them in stock, reflected the idea that collecting displays a type of class and wealth: “But the notion that this gathering involves the accumulation of possessions, the idea that identity is a kind of wealth (of objects, knowledge, memories, experience)” (Clifford 218).  This projected wealth was used to determine the value of books, in addition to the value of the reader.

In this way, GBM’s original location was successful due to Steloff’s customers desire to own a book that represented their identity. The value of the book doing so, although  imposed on by Steloff, was created by customers based on rarity, topic, and price. Therefore, these books became projections of the customer: “Though art may seem to be, most fundamentally, “a projection of our mental images upon the world of things,” this is art that instead shows how weary that world has become of all our projections” (Brown 15). Furthermore, the open floor plan created by Steloff allowed customers the freedom to spend time in the area of the store that they associate their identity with, the bookshelves or the furnace.

 

Sources:

Text:

Brown, Bill. “Thing Theory.” Critical Inquiry Vol. 28, No. 1. p 1-22.

Clifford, James. The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1988.

Rogers, W. G. Wise Men Fish Here: The Story of Frances Steloff and the Gotham Book Mart. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965. Print.

 

Images from Post:

cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com

sonnetsat4am.blogspot.com

utzling.blogspot.com

 

Floor Plan:

Powered by thinglink.com

 

Images from Floor Plan:

bookpatrol.tumblr.com

ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com

www.studyblue.com

www.upenn.edu

 

On the Shelves of Gotham Book Mart

Gotham Book was always a traditionally small and cozy space. The very first location was a brownstone basement and Steloff would put books outside for customers to look at and to entice them inside. The inventory of that location involved into mostly theater and costume books because of the clientele, which started Gotham Book Mart off on its reputation for having rare and hard to find books available. The second location was much larger, though still cramped inside, as the space was packed with books and the aisles were narrow in order to fit as many shelves as possible. In the second location, there was a backyard and garden space where Steloff would hold parties and talks, with tables for outdoor book displays. I’m going to focus on Gotham’s Diamond District location, 41 West 47th Street, which is where the shop spent the majority of its time.

In 1946, Gotham Book Mart moved a few minutes away from its previous location to a new, bigger space. The new building didn’t have a backyard, but it had a back room and multiple stories that Steloff could make use of. In the book In Touch With Genius she talks of how many of her customers didn’t even realize she was in a new location, due to it being so close to the old one. Instead, they just remark about how she’d widened the aisles and added a back room.

Gotham Book Mart specialized in rare books that were difficult to obtain, and that stayed true throughout its moves. Steloff organized her stock into three basic categories: new, secondhand, and rare. The experimental writers were kept separate on the shelves from the more traditional writers and there was a section for first editions as well. On the ground floor of the building, there was a back room filled with shelves on which rested the rare books. There was also a locked case that contained especially rare and fragile books, and the customers weren’t allowed to handle those books without an employee looking over them. In the corner of the back room, there was a Buddha statue and a bronze bust of James Joyce done by Jo Davidson and autographed in the original clay by Joyce himself. Most of the things in the room were on wheels or were collapsible so that they could be easily moved out of the room and folding chairs could be moved in the case of a lecture or reading being held there.

The cellar was off limits to non-staff and contained Gotham Book Mart’s overflow stock and books that Steloff was holding on to until they could be sold, since there was not a return policy with the publishers until later and Steloff was fond of holding onto books until there was a desire for them. This book storage cellar was generally referred to as “the cellar”. The second floor of the shop was a gallery where Gotham Book Mart would display various artists’ pieces and hold exhibitions. The James Joyce Society also held meeting in the second floor gallery after it was founded. Steloff lived in an apartment on the third floor, which had French doors leading out to a balcony that faced and overlooked 47th street. After her death, the third floor apartment was converted into a rare books room. The fourth floor was likely used for further storage, and the fifth floor became the living quarters for Andreas Brown, to whom Steloff had sold the store at that point.

Sources don’t really go into specifics about what genres graced the shelves of Gotham Book Mart, just that they were generally rare and secondhand books, as well as new books by unknown of little known authors. I imagine that there were still a number of theater or costume books left over from Steloff’s time in the theater district, as well as some titles deemed obscene that Steloff defended. In her memoir, she mentions a man coming in and looking for a book with an illustration of a specific stained glass pattern, which, after looking through several books of stained glass illustrations, he was able to find. She also stocked small literary magazines and new publications from poets and authors that she felt deserved recognition and that she wanted to help. These were usually displayed towards the front of the store in her other locations, so I assume that it would be the same in the 41 West 47th Street location. After Steloff’s death and Brown took over running Gotham Book Mart, the stock changed slightly. The store still specialized in rare and secondhand books, but they also branched out into other merchandise, such as T-shirts that were sold in conjunction with gallery showings for different artists.

Something Benjamin talks about in his article, Unpacking My Library, is that things have value, but the value that it has comes from the person inspecting it or possessing it. Things are only valuable if people want them, which is something Steloff knew. This principle was mostly the reason beh

ind her buying up the last of someone’s print run and keeping them for years until someone came in who wanted them and who would buy them. Instead of putting these books on the shelves as soon as she obtained them and not getting a lot of money for them, she would instead wait until they became a little more difficult to find or perhaps until the authors was better known and people wanted to read their earlier works. By waiting for the value people placed on these books to increase, Steloff could get more money for them, so they also became more valuable to her as time went by. The idea of having a responsibility to your books or to your collection can also be applied to Gotham Book Mart, especially the rare books that customers weren’t allowed to handle without supervision. Gotham had a responsibility to protect these rare and sometimes fragile books and it was also the customer’s responsibility to treat these books well and to protect them.

Gotham Book Mart, even in its larger locations, was always jammed full of books, with books filling the shelves, stacked on top of the shelves and on tables between the shelves. It exuded a cozy atmosphere and surrounded the customer with literature and pictures of literary figures, so that he customer was completely immersed in books and in literature.

 

Sources

Text

Benjamin, Unpacking My Bookstore

Frances Steloff, In Touch With Genius

Web

http://www.newyorkboundbooks.com/2013/08/19/wise-men-fish-here/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotham_Book_Mart

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/24/arts/literary-fishing-hole-gets-a-for-sale-sign-bookshop-seeking-less-chaotic-home.html

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/05/13/020513ta_talk_sheehan

Images

http://www.flashpointmag.com/butecam3.htm

http://lynngilbert.wordpress.com

A Walk Through The First Location Of Gotham Book Mart

The First Space

The original location of Gotham Book Mart, also referred to as GBM, was a small basement space on 128 West 45th Street near the theater district in New York City, New York. It was originally called Gotham Art and Book Mart. The space for the store was on the right side of the street, Hudson Theater was a couple of doors away, Lyceum Theater was across the street, and next door to the original shop was Claire’s dress shop.

Hudson Theater Hudson Theater    Lyceum Theater Lyceum Theater

Steloff talks about the first time that she toured the space saying, “I asked the woman there about the space, and she took me around the back way. As she stood in the doorway between the two rooms-one had been the dining room, the other the kitchen with a huge built-in stove still there partly boarded-up.  It was a brownstone English basement, three steps down, which was set back between two remodeled buildings. I looked in the window, which had an old cloth stretched across the inside. The door was also draped…if I would want the back room later on, it could also be arranged.  Here at least I would have the front room and the window, small though it was, entirely to myself” (Steloff 749-750).  In the shop, it is said by the owner that “only the west wall of the room had shelves-that was all I could afford.  On the opposite side, next to the fireplace, was a bookcase which I had brought from my own apartment, and there was a rather long table spread with books” (Steloff 755).

“We took everything that could be used in the shop: bookcases, table, desk, chairs, pictures, and books.  I spent the day arranging the books to make the best showing, as there weren’t enough to fill half the shelves on the one side. The opposite wall had a fireplace with gas logs and a marble mantle, my bookcase on one side and a borrowed bookcase on the other, and above them prints” (Steloff 751).  Frances Steloff made her bookstore feel like a home away from home to her customers.  She created a store ambiance that made her clientele feel like “house guests in a relaxed yet exciting enviroinment” (Miller 94).  David came in the evening, and I went out for food. He brought some old novels the salesmen had given him as they were published. They helped to fill the empty shelves. The next morning the sign was put up and I was ready for business” (Steloff 751).  Steloff goes on to write, “Gordon Whyte was one of the earliest friends of GBM. He came in a week or two after we opened and was delighted to find an out-of-print book that he had been searching for for years. He looked over all the books I had. Only the west wall of the room had shelves-that was all I could afford. On the opposite side, next to the fireplace, was a bookcase which I had brought from my own apartment, and there was a rather long table spread with books. It didn’t take Gordon Whyte long to look over my stock” (Steloff 755).  For what the collection lacked in quantity, it made up for in quality.  Steloff’s customers stayed true to her, and her store, and returned many times to purchase books and to enjoy Steloff’s company.  Below is the floor plan for the first location of Gotham Book Mart.

 

 

“Things” Sold in Gotham Book Mart

Frances Steloff sold things, not objects, within her store.  Her items had innate value because Steloff had chosen them herself.  A blog stated that, “Frances Steloff opened Gotham Book Mart in 1920 after selling books from her window with a sign that said “Interesting Books Selected by Myself” (“Wise”).  To Steloff’s customers, this statement is all that needs to be known about GBM.  The owner had impeccable taste and chose each and every copy of each book that she bought and sold, making this collection her own.  In his work, Thing Theory, Bill Brown writes, “things do not exist without being full of people” (Brown 12).  This is certainly true within the walls of Gotham Book Mart.  These novels and their innate quality would not exist if it were not for Frances Steloff.

A blogger wrote that, “The Gotham and Miss Steloff championed the experimental and challenged the censors over the years.  She supplied James Joyce’s books to US readers as they were published, including those with legal difficulties from the US’s obscenity laws, a service she also provided for D.H. Lawrence and Henry Miller’s work.  She was one of the founding members of the James Joyce Society,and Joyce himself occasionally ordered books directly from Miss Steloff” (“Wise”).  Many of the pieces that were sold by Steloff were second-hand items.  Morgan says, “Much of her [Steloff’s] buying was of second-hand books; she held them until they were wanted, and then sold. Indeed, if a desirable title was not available, GBM was adamant about getting it out to the public” (Morgan 741).

 

Works Cited

Text:

Brown, Bill. “Thing Theory.” Critical Inquiry 28.1 (2001): 1. Print.

“Gotham Book Mart.” – WoD Gotham. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2013. <http://wiki.wodgotham.com/index.php?title=Gotham_Book_Mart>.

“J O H N N Y D E P P Z O N E • Information.” J O H N N Y D E P P Z O N E • Information. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2013. <http://www.johnnydepp-zone.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=7>.

“Jackie as Editor: The Literary Life of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (Google EBook).”Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2013. <http://books.google.com/books?id=naxsJlzGD3wC>.

Miller, Laura J. Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2006. Print.

Steloff, Frances. “In Touch With Genius.” Journal of Modern Literature 4.April (n.d.): 749-882. Print.

“Wise Men Have Fished Here: Homage to the Gotham Book Mart | Bud Parr. The Personal Site of Bud Parr.” Bud Parr The Personal Site of Bud Parr RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2013. <http://www.budparr.com/article/wise-men-have-fished-here-homage-to-the-gotham-book-mart>.

Images:

“Encore Editions – Fine Prints and Frames since 1996.” Hudson Theatre and the Quality Shop, New York, N.Y. Print. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2013. <http://www.encore-editions.com/hudson-theatre-and-the-quality-shop-new-york-n-y>.

“New York City Structures: Lyceum Theatre.” The Epoch Times » The Epoch Times Is an Independent Voice in Print and on the Web. We Report News Responsibly and Truthfully so That Readers Can Improve Their Own Lives and Increase Their Understanding and Respect for Their Neighbors next Door and around the Globe. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2013. <http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/united-states/new-york-city-structures-lyceum-theatre-162615.html>.

 

Your Customers Will Educate You

In late 1919 Frances Steloff came upon a vacant basement store front on 45th Street in New York City.  That day, she went into work at Fredrick Loeser’s Department store in the rare books section and told her boss, George Michke, that she was going to rent out the space and sell her own books. Upon saying this, she asked him what kind of books she should have in her shop, his reply became the format of her business plan for the following eighty six years: “Your customers will educate you” (Steloff 756).

Gotham Art and Book Mart was opened on January 1, 1920, at the once vacant storefront at 125 West 45th Street: “It was a brownstone English basement, three steps down, which was set back between two remodeled buildings” (Steloff 749).  The store was situated in the Theater District, more specifically beside Claire’s Dress Shop, across the street from Lyceum Theater, and a couple of doors away from the Hudson Theater.  Due to this location, the store’s primary customers were actors, musicians, artists, and those involved in performances.  Steloff gracefully adapted her store to this clientele in multiple ways.  One of these was to by adding books on theater, costume, and design to her inventory.  A second way was by changing her store hours to be from 8am to 12am, so actors and directors could stop by the shop for literature and conversation after work.  Third, Gotham Art and Book Mart began a mail-order business, in which second hand books could be mailed to reader’s homes across the country. This addition made business boom, thereby making the space too small for GBM’s inventory.

After outgrowing the first location, Gotham Art and Book Mart became Gotham Book Mart (GBM) on 51 West 47th Street. At this location, GBM gained a logo, as well as a reputation.

The logo “Wise Men Fish Here” followed GBM across each location.  The sign, created by artist John Held Jr, was made of cast-iron and hung outside of the second and third locations.  Not only did it become a way to remember the bookstore, but it served as a definition to what kind of customer Steloff had gained at her new location, educated and wise literature enthusiasts. In an effort to maintain these customers, Steloff began a variety of traditions that, like the sign, followed, as well as defined, GBM throughout each location.

butegotham1 One tradition was the start of GBM’s “fight for books accused of being obscene” (Hauptman 2). The bookstore was known to carry out-of-print and rare books, including those on the banned books list. While this attracted customers, it also caused tension with the New York Society Prevention of Vice in June of 1928. John S. Sumner, a representative of this organization, seized 500 of her “banned” books and fined her $250 for having them in stock. These books included Ulysses by James Joyce, Decameron by Giovanni Boccacio, and My Life and Loves by Frank Harris.  While having books taken off her shelves was an inconvenience, it became the start of a long tradition of new writers coming in to have their books sold at GBM. Multiple writers saw Steloff’s quick defense toward books she saw as valuable, and hoped she would think the same of their own. Steloff, and GBM, became a haven for writers, where they could write, publish, and read whatever they wanted. Soon, Steloff sponsored writers by providing them money to travel and write about their experiences. Once their books were complete, she referred them to publishers, and sold their work in her store. These writers included Theordore Dreiser, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Tennessee Williams, and Anais Nin, among others.
Another tradition was the creation of literary lectures, later turned garden parties. In 1930, Samuel Putnam gave a lecture at GBM to promote his magazine, New Review, which published contemporary French writers. Shortly after his lecture, other writers, publishers, and readers came to GBM to give and hear lectures and readings. Upon moving to the third location, these lectures turned into garden parties, held in the third locations yard, and art exhibitions held in the second level gallery. Some evenings also became host to “Writer and Artist Dinners,” with a 25 cent admission charge. These became GBM’s way to give back to the customer and literary community. GBM became a venue of education through this tradition. In addition, the frequent guests of the lectures and garden parties became close friends, and created a community within the bookstore. Although people within this community appreciated the conversation, it made some customers feel unwelcomed and unworthy. This was especially apparent in the third location.

The community that was carried over from the second location came to define the third location of GBM on 41 West 47th Street, the Diamond District of New York City. This location, purchased from Columbia University for $65,000, was much larger and had a backyard where Steloff could host her garden parties: “There GBM had a backyard with outside book stalls…it was open and spacious, with the… Building as a king of back-drop” (Morgan 743). The space increase allowed more people to come into the garden parties to speak and learn about writers. Many members of these parties soon became members of the James Joyce Society, which was founded at GBM’s third location. James Joyce Society was founded at Gotham Book Mart located on 41 West 45th Street. The secretary Philipp Lyman, and vice president William York Tindall, taught the first Joyce course at Columbia University. Steloff was the treasurer of this society, that met at her shop for its quarterly meetings. GBM built a reputation to have a “cult-like” following for James Joyce.

Steloff sold this location to Andeas Brown, a longtime book lover and GBM customer in 1967. Although she sold the shop, she continued to live in the apartment above it and work within it until her death at age 101. In 2001, the third location closed and Brown moved GBM again to 16 East 46th Street. Not only did this location lack the cast-iron side outside of the shop, but it dropped the name and became known as Gotham Book Mart & Gallery. Before Brown’s purchase of the location, it was home to H.P. Kraus Rare Book Store, images (1) which had gone out of business.  In order for Brown to afford the building, Leonard Lauder, the executive of Estee Lauder beauty company, bought it for $5.2 million and leased it to Brown. Unfortunately, in 2007 GBM closed due to financial trouble. Although many blame it on health problems faced by the new owner, some pin the problem on Barnes and Noble, which moved in around the corner soon after Brown’s move in 2001. Although GBM is closed, the communities created by this place, such as the James Joyce Society, continue to thrive. In addition, GBM’s $3 million book collection has been sold through a variety of actions. 200,000 books alone were purchased anonymously, and donated to the University of Pennsylvania library.

Businesses, like GBM, shape themselves around their clientele. By doing so, the businesses let themselves be defined by this locale: “By locale, Agnew means the material setting for social relations—the actual shape of place within which people conduct their loves as individuals” (Cresswell 7). GBM proved to do so by changing hours at the first location to fit the customers, in addition to expanding lectures and garden parties attracting upper-class customers in the second and third locations. GBM did not stop here.

Even more specific than a place, GBM developed a community. Community can be defined as “a physical place and a set of ideals juxtaposed to the world…implies social bonds based on effective ties and mutual support” (Miller 119). GBM did just that. It was a business that brought new writers and educated readers with common interests and purposes to a single location, then offering those consumers support by proving them with a “much needed public space” (Miller 122). A defining aspect of a community is how deep-routed it is in tradition: “Community evokes a past steeped in tradition as opposed to a constantly changing present” (Miller 119). GBM’s foundations in tradition support the independent bookstore as a community. Taking it step further, it spotlights the idea that communities are defined by the people conducting their lives around them, and in that way communities preserve traditions of the past, while serving consumers of the future.

 

Sources:

Timeline—

Created on:

dipity.com

Photography from:

www.freerepublic.com

www.thepickygirl.com

www.newyorkboundbooks.com

http://archives.newyorker.com/?i=1969-08-16#folio=023

www.flashpointmag.com

joycesociety.org

 

 

Additional Photography—

www.nytimes.com

bookpatrol.tumblr.com

 

 

Text—

Cresswell, Tim. Place: A Short Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2004.

Hauptman, Robert and Joseph Rosenblum. “Frances Steloff.” American Book Collectors and Bibliograohers: Second Series. Ed. Joseph Rosenblum. Detroit: Gale Research, 1997. Dictionary of Literary Biograohy Vol. 187. Literature Resource Center, 1-3.

Miller, Laura J. Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.

Morgan, Kathleen. ”Frances Steloff and the Gotham Book Mart.” Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 4, No. 4, Special Gotham Book Mart Issue: Indiana University Press, 1975. 740-745.

Steloff, Frances. ”In Touch with Genius.” Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 4, No. 4, Special Gotham Book Mart Issue: Indiana University Press, 1975. 749-756.

 

Gotham Book Mart: Small Beginnings to Grand Futures

Frances Steloff founded Gotham Book Mart on January 1st, 1920. Steloff was born in 1877 in Saratoga Springs, New York, and grew up very poor with little access to books. In 1907, she moved to New York City and found a job at a shop selling corsets at Loeser’s Department Store. Loeser’s also had a rare books department that was run by George Mischke. Mischke initiated Steloff into the world of first-editions and print books and later helped her set up her own shop.

In 1920, she bought the lease on a brownstone English basement that was being used as a tailor’s shop in the Theater District. The shop was first named Gotham Book and Art and was located at 128 West 45th Street. The rent was $75 a month and her stock initially consisted of 175 volumes. Her first sale after opening was to Glenn Hunter, who bought a costume book on his way to the Hudson Theater down the street. After his performance, he came back with his roommate and they each bought several more books. After that, many more actors would come into the shop in the evenings after their performances, which prompted her to keep the shop open until midnight. Her clientele dictated her stock and, because they were interested in costume, design, and art books, Gotham became famous for its ability to provide hard-to-get and expensive books on theater. Steloff also began an extensive mail order service, specializing in old and rare books, as well as new books.

One summer in the 20s, just as Gotham was beginning to get started, Steloff remembers, in her memoir In Touch With Genius, how she was afraid the slow summer business would be the end of her shop almost as soon as it had began. A man came up to the window then to look over the books and started making a pile of them. Describing him, she says, “his pants were baggy at the knees, his shirt was open at the neck, his hair was tousseled, and he didn’t look like he could afford to buy any books” but he picked out his books, asked for the price, and then asked for them to be taken to the Hippodrome Theater, where the cashier would pay for them. The books came to $299 and she asked a porter boy to take them down to the theater. After he left with the books, she panicked that she would lose both the money and the books and then the shop would be done for, but the boy came back with all the money. After tipping him a dollar, she had $298 dollars, her customer had been R.H. Burnside, the Stage Director at the Hippodrome, and her bills would be paid.

Like Christopher Morley’s wandering bookseller, Roger, Steloff stocked and sold book based on what the people in the area wanted. While just starting out in the Theater District, her customers were mostly actors and playwrights who were interested in books pertaining to theater and who got off work late into the night. Like Roger’s ability to predict what kinds of books might appeal to what people, Steloff also adapted her stock to fit the clientele. She was also an incredibly shrewd businesswoman in that she had the almost uncanny ability to predict future sales of books. Often, she would buy out what was left of someone’s print run and hold onto them for years until there was a desire for them and they could be sold.

After marrying and returning from her honeymoon, Steloff moved to a larger building at 51 West 47th Street in 1923. Here, the shop’s name was changed to Gotham Book Mart and the famous sign with the phrase “Wise Men Fish Here” hung over the door. Steloff was among friends and other booksellers at her new location. In the same neighborhood were Bretano’s Bookstore, J. Ray Pec, Mischke’s new shop, and Charles P. Everitt right next door to Mischke. The Beacon Book Shop and Chaucer Head Book Shop were also nearby. Cresswell’s simplest explantion of place is “a meaningful location” and, amongst all of these other literary minds, Gotham Book Mart made itself a meaningful place for many different writers and lovers of literature (7). Steloff stocked, sold, and fought for books that had been accused of being obscene, championed small magazines, and helped to gather financial support for writer’s in need, and authors returned Steloff’s admiration by making her shop a place of pilgrimage for literary figures. Christopher Morley, Dylan Thomas, Arthur Miller, Susan Sontag, and Galway Kinnell are just a few of the authors that came in every now and then for books, attended parties, and relaxed in the back yard.

A 1948 party for Osbert and Edith Sitwell (seated, center) drew a number of other celebrities: clockwise from W. H. Auden, on the ladder at top right, were Elizabeth Bishop, Marianne Moore, Delmore Schwartz, Randall Jarrell, Charles Henri Ford (cross-legged, on the floor), William Rose Benét, Stephen Spender, Marya Zaturenska, Horace Gregory, Tennessee Williams, Richard Eberhart, Gore Vidal and José Garcia Villa.

Another point Cresswell talks about in Reading “A Global Sense of Place” is that place is a social construct and that places don’t just exist but are always being shaped by external social forces (57). Steloff travelled Europe buying books and also stocked expensive, limited, signed editions from new publishers. She sponsored lectures on writing, sometimes as many as 40 a year, and also hosted readings after going into publishing their own titles. Gotham Book Mart’s parties were probably what made it into the famous store people know it as.  The party for Edith Sitwell is the most famous, as Life magazine heard of it and showed up to take pictures. The James Joyce Society was also founded and held meetings at the Gotham Book Mart. Every one of these things shaped Gotham into the place it was, as well as the people that bought books from there, attended the lectures and parties, or ate lunch in the yard, as Henry Miller and his friends did.

In 1945, Steloff lost her lease and moved to the shop to a brownstone in the Diamond District at 41 West 47th Street. The shop was still a meeting place of intellectuals, and students who wished to understand more about James Joyce were sent to Steloff by their teachers in order to learn more. When she couldn’t answer all of their questions, she was inspired to found the James Joyce Society.

In 1967, she sold the store to Andreas Brown. Though she was no longer the owner, she continued to live in the apartment above the store and still worked in the shop as a consultant until her death in 1989 at the age of 101.

Frances Steloff in Gotham Book Mart

Brown sold the building in 2003 for $7.2 million dollars and opened up the store a few blocks away in 2004. The newly dubbed Gotham Book Mart & Gallery was now at 16 East 46th Street, the previous location of H.P. Kraus, a rare books store. Only a few years later in 2006, Brown fell behind on his rent and was evicted. Gotham Book Mart’s roughly $3 million inventory was auctioned off in one large lot that sold for only $400 thousand in 2007.

Since Gotham Book Mart’s beginning in 1920, Frances Steloff made the shop a kind of sanctuary for her customers where they could find what they were looking for and what they loved. Her determination and love of literature earned her many friends that would contribute to Gotham Book Mart’s legendary status in the literary world. A small basement store in the Theater District grew into a Mecca and meeting place for literary minds. Even after selling the store, she retained an active role in running it, and its continued success was greatly in part to her still being there. The kinds of books Gotham specialized in and the parties that were held there made it famous, but it was Frances Steloff who made people feel welcome there, kept them coming back, and supported them in their work.

Sources

Images

“Wise Men Fish Here” Sign – <http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/01/keeping-the-got.html>

Window Display – <http://forbookssake.net/2011/05/20/the-gotham-book-mart/>

1948 Party – <http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/02/gotham-book-mart-holdings-are-given-to-penn/>

Frances Steloff – <http://www.mhpbooks.com/slideshow-turn-of-the-century-bookstores/>

Text

Cresswell, Tim. Place: A Short Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub, 2004.

Hauptman, Robert and Joseph Rosenblum. “Frances Steloff.” American Book Collectors and Bibliograohers: Second Series. Ed. Joseph Rosenblum. Detroit: Gale Research, 1997. Dictionary of Literary Biograohy Vol. 187. Literature Resource Center. 

Morgan, Kathleen. “Introduction: Frances Steloff and the Gotham Book Mart.” Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 4, No. 4, Special Gotham Book Mart Issue (Apr., 1975), pp. 737-748

Steloff, Frances. “In Touch With Genius.” Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 4, No. 4, Special Gotham Book Mart Issue (Apr., 1975), pp. 749-882

Websites

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotham_Book_Mart>