Change and Permanence: Space and Objects in Gotham Book Mart

Space and Objects: An Evolution

The evolution of Gotham Book Mart (GBM) can be observed through examining the way in which the space of its locations, and the objects that inhabited these spaces, changed over time. More specifically, in this post I am going to compare GBM’s first location in the theater district to its third location on 47th St by observing the ways in which space and objects defined the store’s approach to book selling and the way in which it fostered a community of people passionate about books and literature.

A Cozy, Humble Shop

Prior to Frances Steloff opening GBM in 1920, she had had experience in the world of publishing but very little background in business and book selling. As a result, her venture into the world of book selling was an experiment, one that took a number of trials and errors in order for her to become successful. From the start, Steloff faced issues of space and inventory with the shop. For starters, the shop itself was not very large, which limited Steloff’s options for managing the space. Additionally, Steloff’s initial inventory of books was small, especially for a store where the primary products were books. Steloff, however, was able to overcome these challenges. Though her space was limited, she was able to use the shop’s cozy, humble atmosphere to her advantage. The shop was furnished to feel like a homey nook where the customer went not solely to purchase a product, but to enjoy the literature that she was purchasing. The front room contained “shelves, [a] fireplace flanked by two glass-enclosed cases,…and [a] long table running down the middle” (Rodgers 77), as well as “a rocker, three straight chairs, a typewriter with an oilcloth hood, a few framed pictures” (60). Steloff transformed the humble space into a homey, welcoming environment. As Benjamin declares of book collectors—which I believe is aptly applicable to booksellers—Steloff was developing “a relationship to objects which does not emphasize their functional, utilitarian value…but studies and loves them as the scene, the stage, of their fate” (Benjamin 60). Steloff was no longer simply selling a product but an experience. The challenges associated with GBM’s limited stock of books were also circumvented through Steloff’s style of running the shop. Steloff allowed customers to peruse her collection of books at their discretion, and did not attempt to direct the traffic of customers. The space of the shop reflects this: there are no aisles to confine the customer, but rather an open space in which the customer can roam at her leisure. Steloff understood that, as a novice book seller, she had a lot to learn from her customers and their tastes, so she let them navigate through the shop as they pleased. GBM’s customer base at its first location, which was in the heart of the theater district, was largely made up of people associated with the stage; as a result, Steloff began to stock dramatic literature and texts related to theater. Due to “her customers educat[ing] her,” writes Rodgers, “not preference but haphazard pressures1 turned her into a specialist in two profitable fields: art and theater” (74). Steloff’s customer’s responded favorably to her effort to adapt to their tastes. Rodgers relays the following anecdote in support of this: “A handsome young fellow stood staring into her three by three front window…He spoke first: ‘How much for the theater costume book spread open in her display case?’ It was her most expensive single volume. She hardly dared to answer: ‘It’s fifteen dollars.’” Despite the steep price, the young man purchased the whole collection without hesitation.
Mastery of the Trade

Comparing the space of GBM’s first location in the theater district to its third, and most successful, location on 47th St draws sharp contrasts. The shop on 47th St “had about three times as much space” (Rodgers 179) as the second location, which itself was much larger than the first location. This larger space, combined with the twenty-five years of book selling experience that Steloff accrued prior to moving to 47th St., afforded her greater creative control over the stock, space, and layout of the shop than ever before. Compared to when she first opened GBM, Steloff’s relationship with the customer had achieve a sort of balance: she still paid attention to the taste of the customer, but it no longer dictated the space and inventory of the shop—rather, Steloff was able to exercise her impact and influence to help shape customer’s taste in return. The space of the store on 47th St., unlike the first location, was divided into aisles that were flanked with bookshelves. This arrangement of bookshelves gave the store on 47th St. a greater sense of “place” by “carving out ‘permanences’ from the flow of processes creating spatio-temporality” (Cresswell 57). These “permanences”—or bookshelves—were “not eternal but always subject to time as ‘perpetually perishing’” (Cresswell 57)—i.e., the books on the shelves were constantly being sold, restocked, and updated. The customer could still roam at her leisure, but the aisles and categorization inventory directed the traffic of the shop. For example, Steloff devoted a bookshelf at the front of the store to small literary magazines and up-and-coming authors’ first works—her way of promoting literature that her customers may not be familiar with but that deserves attention.

In addition to manipulating the internal structure of the store, Steloff took advantage of the back courtyard to hold readings and garden parties to promote new publications and foster a strong community that bonded over books. Steloff was not shy about applying structural ‘permanences’ to the space of the courtyard as well: as opposed to leaving an open space for people to mingle freely while socializing, she constructed rows of tables displaying books to circumscribe and border the interactions.

Steloff’s ambitions to shape the perspective of those who came in contact with GBM was not limited to customers who physically entered the store. Rather, Steloff was willing to use the space and objects of her store to make an impression on the world outside. For example, the front display window often contained controversial literature, which was meant to intrigue and provoke passersby. GBM was also known for carrying banned or censored literature, which eventually drew the attention of the authorities and resulted in a run-in with the law for GBM. From the arrangement of bookshelves to the acts of protest against censorship, the evolution of GBM from its inception through its hey-day reflects the way in which space and objects—concepts that we hardly consider on a day-to-day basis, and when we do, think of as innocuous—can have a major impact on the world within and without.

 

 

1I.e., the tastes and whims of her customers.

 

 

Works Cited
Benjamin, Walter, Hannah Arendt, and Harry Zohn. Illuminations. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968. Print.
Cresswell, Tim. Place: A Short Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2004. 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.

 

A Look Back at Gotham Book Mart: Place and People

The Gotham Book Mart was a hub for avant garde literature and a center of culture for the 87 years that it was in business. There were many factors that contributed to the success, popularity, and importance of Gotham Book Mart: the literary climate of the early- and mid- 20th century, its location in the heart of New York City, the demand for banned or censored books, the need for a physical location for these cultural figures to congregate, and so on. But beyond all of these factors, one person stands out as being undeniably instrumental to the success of Gotham Books: Frances Steloff. Now, 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 ambition, persistence, and business-savvy was the king pin that held the other pieces in place. Even after she sold the Gotham Book Mart, the spirit of her bookshop largely remained the same. As a result, much of this post will focus on the ‘place and people’ of Gotham Book Mart’s past vis-a-vis Frances Steloff.

Frances Steloff

Humble beginnings

Frances Steloff was born in 1887 to a poor immigrant family in Sarasota 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. In 1907, at the age of 20, Steloff moved to New York City, where she found work at Loeser’s department store selling corsets. Soon after starting work at the department store, Steloff was put in charge of the store’s magazine/book section, and within a year doubled the department’s sales. Despite the negativity that  surrounded book-selling in department stores around WWII, and the criticism these stores faced from people in the book industry (Miller), Steloff’s position at Loeser’s is what enabled her to find her calling as a purveyor of the written word.

First opening and establishing roots

In 1920, after working at an assortment of publishers in the city, Steloff opened the Gotham Art and Book Mart at 128 W 45th street in the theater district. This was a bold move for a woman during this time: most women in their thirties were settling down and focusing on establishing a domicile and a family; Steloff, on the other hand, was venturing into the world of business. In Gotham Book Mart’s early years, the shop served as a place for actors and people involved in the theater world to congregate and purchase literature. Steloff recognized that the location of the store, in the theater district, would define much of the business and clientele of the shop, and as a result she fostered this community of patrons by stocking rare and obscure plays. After three years on 45th St., however, the store moved to 51 W 47th street, where it changed its name to the shorter “Gotham Book Mart” and erected its famous “Wise Men Fish Here” sign. At its new location, the store developed a reputation for stocking avant garde and banned books—such as Tropic of Cancer and Lady Chatterley’s Lover—which drew literati and the culturally curious alike. This location was also where the tradition of Gotham Book Mart “garden parties” started, which began as a series of lectures but eventually became occasions for book releases. Literary celebrities and major cultural figures would attend these parties, and at its height Gotham was hosting more than 40 per year.

 

"A December 1948 party for Osbert and Edith Sitwell (seated, center) drew a roomful of bright lights to the Gotham Book Mart: 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." (NY Times)

A household name in an unlikely neighborhood

In 1946 Gotham Book Mart moved to 41 W 47th street, the location the store would call home the longest (58 years) and where the store established its broadest community of writers and notable cultural figures (W.H. Auden, Marianne Moore, and Dylan Thomas were all frequent patrons at this location). Steloff was also 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” (in Steloff’s case, it was clearly for good). She continued to host book releases and took risks on authors’ first works, as well as starting a “Writer’s Relief Fund,” which aimed to help writers in financial need while by accepting donations from established artists and patrons. (The project, however, was not very successful due to the large number of beneficiaries and the small number of benefactors). Steloff also hired up-and-coming writers and artists to work at her store, such as Allen Ginsberg, LeRoi Jones, and Tennessee Williams (though Williams only lasted one day).

 

Diamond District
Left, Diamond District in 1943; right, diamond district in 2008

Although business proliferated at the store on 41 W 47th St., Gotham Book Mart’s success in this neighborhood is in some ways a surprise. The address of 41 W 47th St. is at the heart of the Diamond District, an area of Midtown Manhattan with a high concentration of diamond and jewelry retailers. During the 1940s, the Diamond District saw a boom in business with the influx of Jewish diamond dealers who were forced to flee Antwerp and Amsterdam during WWII. In a neighborhood that specialized in diamonds and jewelry, and at a time when business was thriving, how is it that Gotham Books managed to be so successful in such an unlikely environment? I would posit that this success was largely due to Steloff and her determination as the shop’s owner. A shrewd business woman who poured her life into her store, she embodied the archetype of the passionate bookseller whose goal is to create a flourishing community and to adapt to the needs and demands of her customer base.

 

The sale of Gotham and its late decline

In 1967, at the age of 80, Frances Steloff sold Gotham Book Mart to Andreas Brown. After its sale, Steloff remained a ‘consultant’ for the bookstore and a constant present in the shop. Though Gotham Books remained an important cultural landmark and a major independent bookstore, its position as a meeting place for high profile artists and intellectuals began to wane. There are two factors that largely contributed to this decline: notable cultural and literary figures were less present in the community around the bookstore, and the store saw a gradual resignation from Steloff as she aged. Without a strong constituency of cultural figures in and out of the shop, and with the woman behind the scenes unable to field new authors and cultivate a community based around literature and learning, the store’s struggle seemed inevitable.

Gotham Book Mart remained open long after its sale to Brown; even after Steloff’s death in 1989, the ex-owner’s lingering spirit likely helped keep the store open for close to another twenty years. Even if the Gotham Books was no longer a meeting place for elite literati and artists, the place remained “a locus of collective memory—a site where [an experience] is created [for the consumer] through the construction of memories linking a group of people into the past” (Harvey).

During the 1990s and early 2000s, Gotham Books ran into legal issues over the building on 47th St. In a last-ditch effort to keep their doors open, Gotham Book Mart moved to 16 E 46th St. in 2004, but would only remain in this location until 2007 before closing for good.

https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=zLtjLvpSJhTE.ka_wL1NgppdI

 

 

Sources

Maps embedded by Google

 

Images

Frances Steldoff  <http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_lW4bdAZDrFM/RmAv4a-i4dI/AAAAAAAAAF4/eKU2Iyz05jU/s400/gotham40317.jpg>

Gathering at Gotham Book Mart <http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/01/02/nyregion/gothamliterary-480.jpg>

Diamond District <http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/08/31/realestate/31scap2_600.jpg>

 

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>

 

Texts

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

John Tebbel, “A Brief History of American Bookselling.” Bookselling in America and the World: Some Observations & Recollections. ed. Anderson, Charles B. New York: Quadrangle/The New York Times Book, 1975. Print.

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

Morgan, Kathleen. “Frances Steloff and the Gotham Book Mart.” Journal of Modern Literature (1975): 737-48. Print.