“A Non-Fat Latte with a Drizzle of Social Consciousness, Please”: Purchasing More than Books at Powell’s

A collaboration between MaryKate, Rebekah, Cory, and Shawn.


Your in-flight entertainment was staring over the pages of your unread novel as parents tried to wrangle their children. You’re pretty sure your knees are bruised from the overzealous reclining of the passenger in front of you. Still, as you make your way through Portland International Airport (PDX, as the locals say), you are brimming with excitement. Maybe you’ve watched too many episodes of Portlandia, but you can’t help but feel as though you’ve arrived in a place that embraces everything different and “weird,” not to be awarded the titles of “World’s Best Street Food,” but—

Wait. Is that a used bookstore? In an airport? And is that customer selling their book? Well, that’s certainly something new. You haven’t even entered the city, but Powell’s Books has already snared you, and you have only seen the smallest of their locations. Buckle up. You’re in for quite the ride.

powells

A thirty-minute car ride across the Willamette River (or a slightly longer train ride if you want to dive into Portland’s culture of sustainability right away) will land you in the Pearl District. The district takes up a relatively small portion of northwest Portland, but what it lacks in size, it makes up for in a multitude of globally conscious businesses that allow consumers to participate in and learn about cultures outside of their own. Admittedly, the Pearl District is not particularly diverse with regard to demographics; Portland as a whole is consistently ranked one of the country’s whitest cities. In 2010, for example, the Pearl District had a population of approximately 5,997 people, but an overwhelming 84.9% identified as only White, while only 7.6% identified as Asian, 3.9% as Latino/a/x, and 2.4% as Black or African-American. However, though the vanilla flavor of the district continues to dominate, there is hardly a stereotypical W.A.S.P. to be found. True, the Pearl District is home to mostly professional men and women in their mid-thirties, but while a cultural competency test is not required to move into one of America’s “hippest hipster neighborhoods,” the district certainly encourages a passion for difference outside the walls of their office jobs.

Everywhere you look, there are clusters of international restaurants, boutiques selling global fashions, galleries, and theaters reminding you that as much as we all love Starbucks, there are other options. Even if you decide Lebanese food isn’t your style, or you prefer the work of local artists displayed in cafés to an international artist featured in one of the museums, you at least become aware of their existence. Tim Cresswell’s “Defining Place” characterizes a place as a space that inspires “the human capacity to produce and consume meaning” (7), and the Pearl District as a whole interestingly bridges the gap between the immediate place (Portland) and far-off places that offer bits of the unknown. Certainly, it can be argued from a more cynical point of view that the citizens of the Pearl District are performing elements of different cultures or passively noting them, rather than engaging with them; instead of producing any real meaning, the consumers are merely enjoying the aesthetics of difference. However, even if this is sometimes the case, an interest in learning about the unfamiliar is particularly relevant when considering the area’s sole bookstore: Powell’s City of Books. While you can easily move on when your Polynesian meal is over, if you buy a book about Polynesian culture, the engagement with ideas and knowledge continues long after you’ve finished your lau lau.

However, the area was not always a center for meaningful cultural experimentation. Before earning the pearly moniker, the district was known as the “Northwest Triangle” and largely centered on the rail lines until an economic shift introduced warehouses, breweries, and shipping facilities. As each industry moved into the suburbs over time, the abandoned buildings became cheap lodgings for the starving artist population, though there was still little inkling that there was a creative hub waiting to burst from miles of deserted factories, construction equipment, and tiny businesses struggling as they butted up against what many considered an industrial wasteland. Despite the reputation, this is where Powell’s Books chose to put down its Portland roots long before you would have seen another smaller Powell’s comforting weary travelers in Portland’s airport.

Michael Powell was a University of Chicago graduate student with a knack for consignment when he opened the Chicago bookstore that started it all in 1970. His father, Walter, came in the summer of 1971 to help with the rapidly growing used bookstore, and by the time he returned to Oregon, he too had been bitten by the bookselling bug. Walter was drawn to the section of Portland that had long been a spot for artists and small business owners to find inexpensive spaces to work and live. In 1979, Michael accepted Walter’s invitation to return home and work with him, and after a forced relocation, their flagship store moved into a former car dealership. Walter bought every used book that passed through, but it was his decision to include new, out-of-print, and rare books that paved the way for Powell’s to become a recognizable brand and a cultural icon.

Just as the Pearl District struggled to define itself after its identity shifted, Walter and Michael Powell sought to carve out a unique image. Michael was dubious of shelving the new and used books next to each other at first, but the mixture proved a successful business strategy. Not only did rake in profits, but it offered a way to connect to the developing community, and thus to settle into the district and reach out to their customers in ways other than across the counter. Providing readers with the largest selection of material possible attracted customers who wanted to avoid making multiple stops for used and new, but more importantly, it offered those readers the opportunity to explore topics and authors unavailable in stores focused on bestsellers. All books were accepted at Powell’s, and all readers were welcome. The state spent extravagantly to rebuild and revitalize the Pearl District, but Powell’s was hardly touched. This illustrated that not only could independent bookstores survive, but a passion for sharing knowledge is an integral force in the development of a community. Ownership has most recently transferred to Michael’s daughter, Emily, and the chain has spread across Portland and the nearby suburb of Beaverton, as well as to the Internet, but the business’ devotion to inclusiveness has not changed. It was not until 1999 that the Pillar of Books was introduced, but the dedication to the phrase, “Coeme Librum (Buy the Book), Lege Librum (Read the Book), Carpe Librum (Enjoy the Book), Vende Librum (Sell the Book)” has been clear since day one.

There are currently five physical Powell’s Books locations, though Powell’s City of Books remains the crown jewel. As you approach W. Burnside Street and 10th Avenue, you realize that it takes up an entire city block. In a way, it is really the novelty of the store is what draws you in for the first time. After all, how often is it that you come across a bookstore that occupies 68,000 square feet of space, contains over 1,000,000 books, and still retains the cool, almost hipster feel of an independent bookstore despite its own magnitude? You’ve been waiting for this moment since you caught a glimpse of the sign in the airport. Are you ready?

powells3

The store has two entrances, occupying opposite corners of the block. The more prominent is the W. Burnside Street entrance to the Green Room, featuring the store’s iconic red and white sign advertising everything from children’s story hours to book signings, while the other leads into the Orange Room from 11th Avenue. Of the nine rooms, the Green and Orange rooms contain the only registers, meaning you have to continue walking in order to see and purchase more options. A reader familiar with the myth of the labyrinth may be wary of embarking on their journey, but fear not; there is no Minotaur lurking amongst the twelve-foot high shelves. You will be the one devouring knowledge today (and perhaps a snack in the Coffee Room), and while the adventure may feel perilous at times as you cross paths with hoards of other readers and shelves of authors you hadn’t heard of until today, Powell’s ensures this experience is fun, rather than stressful. There is no rush. The store maps posted are not there to force you into the next room once you’ve hit your time allowance, but to help guide you to the topics you know and remind you of all those genres you may not know. The notes left on the shelves from previous readers encourage you to keep exploring and investigating new texts, even if you are outside of your literary comfort zone.

Whether you are interested in bestsellers (Green), poetry (Blue), westerns (Gold), graphic novels (Coffee), children’s books (Rose), philosophy (Purple), travel (Red), interior design (Pearl), gardening (Orange), Powell’s has something to offer you. Take a look at the floor plan below to get a clearer idea of what Powell’s City of Books stocks:

With its rows of plain pine shelves towering over a cement floor, the store retains the industrial feel of the Pearl District, while the seemingly endless diverse volumes on the shelves serve as yet another example of the area’s devotion to cultivating globally and socially conscious citizens. Even the recent renovations have only enhanced the distinctive Powell’s experience. The Green and Blue rooms, for example, received facelifts that addressed leaking roofs and poor lighting, but the construction exposed elements of the previous car dealership that have since been incorporated as reminders of where the district began and what it has become. New rainbow carpeting has also been installed in the Rose Room, but the only room to completely break the “warehouse plus knowledge” pattern is the Rare Book Room on the third floor with its dark wood, comfy seating, and dizzying price tags. Despite its private library feel, even here customers are invited to relax and peruse the books for as long as they please. Michael Powell feels that, “Barnes & Noble’s message is ‘Buy the book and get the hell out of here’ in some subliminal way.” When it comes to Powell’s City of Books, though, the novelty and the “coolness” factor that land the bookstore on so many Top 10 lists draws you in, but the dedication to making you feel welcome is what keeps you there. There are only a few chairs scattered in the more or less shabby rooms, but the community of readers and knowledgeable staff that fill the massive place encourage you to keep exploring, even if you have to take a break for a day and come back.

What matters most, though, is not the ambiance, but the books themselves. For Bruno Latour in “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam?” a thing is both “an object out there” and “an issue very much in there” (2288), and Powell’s treats their books not only as products to stock and sell, but as entertainers, teachers, movers and shakers. For Powell’s, “literature” is not limited to Sophocles and Chaucer. Certainly, the Blue Room is the most traditionally “literary,” and it is an early stop. Perhaps this is by design. Maybe they renovated the Green and Blue rooms because they only care about sending the award-winners and classics out the doors. Maybe they want to make sure you have the opportunity to look over their proper selection before you sully your brain with the erotica. Maybe the hipster, socially conscious vibe is all a ruse to draw in traffic masking the lack of genuine interest in the customers’ experiences. However, while these perspectives may reflect the business angle or the traditionally elitist conception of the bookstore, they do no match up with the Powell’s vision.

Rather, Powell’s seems to understands the wants and needs of their customers, and they are able to make business decisions that both keep the store afloat and guarantee that the consumers who choose to engage with them have meaningful experiences. While the citizens on the Pearl District may be more culturally aware than others, they may still walk into Powell’s with preconceived ideas about what qualifies as “literature” or what a “bookstore” is supposed to look like. In The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, Lewis Buzbee notes, “the bookstore has continually found itself a stronghold of the rights of free expression,” offering wide selections, even at the expense of others’ disdain (148). By offering traditional section titles but including a diverse range that may be ignored by other stores, Powell’s pushes customers outside of their preconceptions. The “traditional” literature section is easy to find for those so inclined, but the first listing on Powells.com is not for Mansfield Park, but for My Jane Austen Summer: A Season in Mansfield Park. Popular fiction is treated with the same value and lack of judgment as self-help manuals, cat picture books, and poetry collections. Even the volumes kept in the Rare Book Room are not locked away for those with enough disposable income to purchase them; all are welcome to pore over them. All that Powell’s asks is that they be examined with care, hence their placement away from the sticky-handed children.

powells2

Walking through the maze can easily become an all-day affair, but if you begin to feel overwhelmed by your haphazard navigation, remember that there is a method to the (seeming) madness. Powell’s Books as a brand is one concerned with social responsibility. In Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption, Laura J. Miller observes, “consumption is inextricably political in that it can be related to the common good and has implications for the gains and losses faced by particular groups” (228), and Michael and Emily Powell have openly emphasized their devotion to youth literacy, literary awareness, and curtailing censorship. Even if their customers do not directly participate in those causes, supporting such a powerful and vocal business ties them to social progress. The Powell family never seems to tire of emphasizing that a well-informed community is necessary, and no one is an exception to this rule, including children. Some of the books chosen for this month’s “Kids’ Storytime” events include Karl Edwards’ Fly! which encourages toddlers to be true to themselves and persevere, and Tracey Corderoy’s Why? which encourages young children to ask questions. Even if they are not tall enough yet to access every book available in the color-coded rooms, the power that Powell’s customers have to learn and engage with the wider community is never forgotten.

The citizen-consumer is responsible and educated, and being aware of the plethora of stories at their fingertips assists in the efforts of trading ignorance for awareness. Powell’s appeal to the citizen-consumer is evident in the layout of their flagship store. Customers must walk through areas of the store that may not have their genre of choice in order to get to the rooms that may appeal to them more. Though there is no one correct path to take, Powell’s City of Books has integrated a sort of “ebb and flow” to their store that is exacerbated by the swelling waves of customers moving from room to room. Customers are encouraged to take advantage of their time in the maze by looking into topics that they may not have known existed; just as they may discover that Mediterranean cuisine is not to their liking outside of Powell’s walls, they at least have the opportunity to become culturally aware by perusing new subjects.

By offering a wide range of options in their City of Books and on their website, Powell’s not only expands the definition of literature, but also emphasizes that no population is excluded. Their stock, events, and social programming reach out to communities in Portland and the world at large (international shipping is only $7.00!) and invite them to become part of one, big Powell’s community. Is it cheesy? Perhaps, but the amount of people carrying Powell’s Books water bottles, subscribing to Indiespensible, or grabbing their morning coffee while surrounded by literature is quite the indicator of this independent bookstore’s power over the community. You can “Keep Portland Weird” with your mismatched Powell’s Books socks while also supporting interest in the perspectives of others. Powell’s offers the whole appealing package that comes when so many of us envision a welcoming place to engage with literature. They have the books, the coffee, the warm socks, and the excitable community to discuss ideas with after finishing the last page. Powell’s stages the store in a way to draw in customers who may be wary of the “warehouse bookstore” experience if they have not been to Powell’s City of Books, but once inside, you are never given the chance to forget that the main product is still a book – an object full of meaning and power not restricted to the pages.

11093061_1587684654807794_1531581236_n

In Archibald MacLeish’s A Free Man’s Books: An Address, MacLeish questions whether booksellers “ascribe as great an influence to the books we write and publish and sell and catalogue and teach” as we hope to (7). In the case of Powell’s Books, it seems that everyone involved in the process has come to realize the value of books. From Walter, who chose to ignore the traditional divisions between new and used; to Michael and Emily, who moved Powell’s into the future and into the community; to the store clerks who are eager to share their favorite works and genres without ever passing judgment; to the tourists who travel miles to experience “the City”; to the regulars who view Powell’s as a mixture of icon and second home, everyone participates in creating the Powell’s experience. Though Powell’s Books as a business makes calculated decisions that help the brand remain relevant, the Powell’s experience is one of collaboration. Every leader has a follower, and Powell’s Books has proven adept at molding followers who then become socially aware community leaders themselves.

Sources

Images:
Baby Perusing Books. <http://iconosquare.com/p/972709022740379151_6119220>
Blue Room Aisles. <http://iconosquare.com/p/960241511317205328_15672395>
Girl Reading in an Alley. <http://iconosquare.com/p/965614145046389290_416786351>
Green Room Bestsellers. Original photography by Erin Pratt.
Is Coffee Part of Your Daily Grind? <http://iconosquare.com/p/963512580060696435_219142258>
Powell’s Books Mug. <http://iconosquare.com/p/961984139965225156_301663061>
Powell’s Storefront. <http://iconosquare.com/p/963512580060696435_219142258>
Smellbound interior photo. Original photography by Erin Pratt.

Media:
“Powell’s Books.” Dipity. 2015. <http://www.dipity.com/cory_brugger/Powells-Books/>
“Powell’s City of Books.” GoogleMaps. 2015. <https://www.google.com/maps/@45.522979,-122.681163,3a,75y,322.41h,80.85t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s5NkuMcbDEc59Xj8vUGat5A!2e0?hl=en-US>
“Powell’s City of Books.” ThingLink. 2015. <https://www.thinglink.com/scene/649584543933661184>

Text:
Buzbee, Lewis. The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop: A Memoir, a History. Minneapolis: Graywolf Press, 2006.
Cresswell, Tim. “Defining Place.” Place: A Short Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. 1-14.
Latour, Bruno. “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam?” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. Ed: Vincent B. Leitch. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. 2282-2302.
MacLeish, Archibald. A Free Man’s Books: An Address. New York: The Peter Pauper Press, 1942. 5-17.
Miller, Laura J. “Pursuing the Citizen Consumer.” Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. 197-229.

Websites:
“About Pearl District.” Pearl District Neighborhood Association. 2015. <http://www.pearldistrict.org/about-the-pearl-district/>
Chamberlin, Jeremiah. “Inside Indie Bookstores: Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon.” Poets & Writers. March 2010. http://www.pw.org/content/inside_indie_bookstores_powell_s_books_in_portland_oregon
City Data, Pearl District Neighborhood, Portland, Oregon. <http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Pearl-Portland-OR.html>
“History of Powell’s Books.” Powells.com. http://www.powells.com/info/briefhistory.html
“History of the Pearl District.” Explore the Pearl. 2014. <http://explorethepearl.com/about-the-pearl/history-of-the-pearl-district/>
“Powell’s City of Books (Portland).” LibraryThing. https://www.librarything.com/venue/3811/Powells-City-of-Books-Portland-
Smith, David Hale. “Return of the Great American Indie Bookstore.” American Way. Dec 2015. p. 81.
“Tour Powell’s City of Books.” Powells.com. http://www.powells.com/info/citytour.html

Powell’s Gives the Modern Consumer Some Space

Five years ago, Michael Powell remarked to Poets & Writers Magazine that he wasn’t a fan of the way that the big chain bookstores like Borders had designed their interiors; he said these stores were “too bright,” with “shelves [. . .] so low [that] everybody’s watching everybody” (Jeremiah Chamberlin 2). The original store in Portland famously occupies a building that was once used by a car dealership, and the store’s aesthetic was originally “industrial,” as Powell put it, with “a cement floor” and “exposed insulation as a sort of architectural touch” (ibid).

This changed in a big way last year. Under the direction of Emily Powell, Michael’s daughter, and new CEO Miriam Sontz, the two most popular rooms in the City of Books, the Green and Blue Rooms, were remodeled (not to mention the building got a new roof). As one would expect, the new storefront reflects the trends that have taken effect in the book market since Michael helmed the independent chain. But this new arrangement could also be implying that the community surrounding Powell’s wished for its landmark bookstore to acknowledge these trends and incorporate them.

The drawing below is based off of a new Powell’s map, converting the diagonal view of the store to top-down. My drawing obviously isn’t the most sophisticated, but I found that it didn’t have to be–circles and rectangles both represent tables, except for search computers and the information desk, as seen in this photo; and the tables and shelves host the hottest titles on the market as well as the requisite accessories, souvenirs, and other impulse products.

The photos in this floor plan show a spacious store quite unlike the descriptions given by Michael Powell to Poets & Writers of “little alleys” of “shelves [. . .] about twelve feet high” (ibid). But as Laura J. Miller would observe in her book Reluctant Capitalists, standardized space paves the way to standardized sales, sales that are both predictable and actually bring a profit to one’s store. While discussing a “1922 management guide for chain stores” (87), Miller notes that “standardized techniques were being utilized for the selling of groceries, drugs, tobacco, and various other goods” well before they were utilized for the selling of books (88). The rise of chain bookstores has been such that even independent stores can now adopt their interior design policies and rest assured that consumers can appreciate the new look.

 

 

 

 

But however large the Powell’s flagship store is, the company only has a handful of other stores. On top of that, a few of these stores have specialized, like the Home and Garden store. The point being that this independent chain does not have many stores to standardize and can still rely on local expectations. Just because it was ultimately decided that the front end of the City of Books could look more like the big chains doesn’t mean every branch has to.

 

 

 

Even so, the City of Books has retained a unique flavor. While the Green Room has become more quaint than the back areas of the store, it achieves this specifically by not being over-bright like the Borders outlets that felt so uninviting to Michael Powell. If you look at the image of the cashiers’ counter again, you’ll see that the colors in the picture are all very mild and muted. The light-tan shelves and the matte white wall behind the cashiers blend together so that only the green banners advertising New Arrivals and a nerdy neologism call attention to themselves.

Not the Green RoomIn the Thinglink image above, I observed more than once that there’s a lot of space to move around in with this new design. While it’s hard to find images online that could definitely be said to have represented the Green Room pre-2014, many of these older images show massive shelves standing very close together. In fact, they seem to show rooms other than Green or Blue, given the color coding on the signs, meaning that those rooms are likely the same at this very moment. In other words, much of the store has kept its independent stock and feeling–you just have to look past the bestsellers. And with Powell’s’s eminence as an independent, there’s sure to be many customers who can walk past the New Faves table-island without even a first glance.

Not to mention that the Green Room itself hasn’t even been completely standardized. While the tables in the middling space of the room are as short and unassuming as the ones in chain stores, the shelves on the walls are still very tall and well-filled. If the City of Books has aired itself out a bit, it is no shier about the breadth of its contents. In fact, I would say that the combination of walking space and high stock gives the store a feeling of confidence and opulence that can’t be achieved with clustered shelves. Even with the hot titles that every other bookstore also carries, Powell’s shows that it can compete with any chain outlet.

Lest we say too much to the effect that too little has really changed, I want to call attention to a smaller detail in the new Green Room. If you go back to the floor plan, you can see that the small tables all have space underneath for more copies of the displayed titles to be stacked up. I don’t know who first worked out such a table design, but it’s genius. Anyone browsing the wares can take a book without messing up the display, if they so choose, and they can also make note of diminishing stock.

This design is anathematic to the independent booksellers of old, who stood against the commodification of literature under the belief that it could not be quantified or exhausted in the same way as, to use Len Riggio’s example, toothpaste (Miller 97). However, the beauty of these tables is that store managers now get to have it both ways. They get to show books as “gallery objects” and “huge piles” at the same time (ibid). To use another concept, a book on this shelf exists as “the celebrated Thing,” the item bearing “its rich set of connections,” that philosopher Martin Heidegger sought in contrast with “objects” (Bruno Latour 2288). Books in and on these tables are universally meant to be read, but art can’t ever be “abandoned to the empty mastery of science and technology” like mere objects can; each book, when read, deepens feeling within a reader regardless of the way it stood on its shelf, the number of souvenirs on the next shelf, or the amount of space traversed to find it (ibid).

Images

Thinglink floor plan

Images of Powell’s City of Books found through Google searches.

Powell’s City Map

Texts

Latour, Bruno.  “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam?” The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. 2nd ed. Ed. Vincent B. Leitch.  New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. 2282-302. Web.

Miller, Laura J. Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. 87-115. Print.

Websites

Inside Indie Bookstores: Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon
Overview of changes according to Powell’s
Before changes were completed (Portland Monthly Mag)

Both the Changer and the Changed: the Dynamism of Powell’s Books

In Sunwise Turn: A Human Comedy of Bookselling, Madge Jenison reflects on the development of her modernized bookstore in the early twentieth century, noting, “The only way we get at other human beings is through ideas, and where ideas are current something unlocks the breast” (114). The ideas captured in books have a transformative power, and sharing them with others can inspire progress. Where do you envision this exchange of ideas occurring? Close your eyes, if it helps. Perhaps you thought of a warm, wood-paneled library occupied by men in tweed jackets with elbow patches. Maybe you thought of a university classroom, a French salon, or a shady spot under a tree. You probably did not think of a massive warehouse on a street corner in an undeveloped, rough-and-tumble city district, though. However, it was in just that unexpected setting that one of the largest, most well stocked, and most popular independent bookstores in the world settled in.

couch

Long before the iconic red and white sign of Powell’s City of Books took over the corner of W. Burnside St. and NW. 10th Ave., the area that would later be known as the “Pearl District” was initially part of the Couch Addition. In 1869, this massive land donation from Captain John Couch incorporated a substantial amount of space to what was the existing northwest Portland, and it became known as the “Northwest Triangle.” The economy of the area was largely centered around rail lines for the latter half of the nineteenth century, and the transition into the twentieth was marked by a surge in warehouses, breweries, and shipping facilities. As discussed in my last post, Portland’s Pearl District has historically been predominantly white demographically, and this is largely because the industrial presence drew in a large population of blue-collar European immigrants.

As cars became more popular and highways were introduced, though, the steadiness of the Northwest Triangle was shaken; warehouses and manufacturing centers began to migrate to suburbia, and the railroad’s status as the premier mode of transportation changed. However, the architecture remained, with the freight houses becoming townhouses and the cheap warehouses-turned-lofts drawing in the starving artist population. It didn’t take long for others to realize that the industrial, brick-and-mortar structures were hiding a burgeoning cultural center bursting with creativity – the pearl among the “old, crusty exteriors.” By the time the name the “Pearl District” had been embraced, the dynamic, developing nature of the place was clearly evidenced by its collection of unique art galleries, upscale shopping locations, and global cuisine choices – many taking over the abandoned buildings. Over the course of the 1980s and ‘90s, the community proved to be receptive to change, mixing the old and the new with diverse cultures. It was here that Powell’s Books laid its roots.

Prior to becoming one of Portland’s most beloved landmarks, Powell’s Books had its beginnings some 2,100 miles away in Chicago, Illinois. In 1970, University of Chicago graduate student Michael Powell opened a small used book store near Hyde Park. Michael had experience buying and selling consigned textbooks, and with the monetary assistance of distinguished professors, his bookstore flourished, slowly creeping into the space of the surrounding shops. As the summer of 1971 rolled around, Michael’s father, Walter, came to assist him. When he returned home to Portland after a month, Walter immediately set out to open his own bookstore. After filling the shelves with every book he came across, Walter realized that not only would his profits increase if he sold used and new books alongside each other, but it would be a more enjoyable experience for customers if they did not need to make multiple stops. Just as Madge Jenison was “horrified” by the empty shelves when she and her partner only “bought everything that we liked and everything we especially wanted people to read” (20), both Walter and Michael realized the importance of “afford[ing] readers the broadest possible perspective of reading” and sought to offer as many books as possible without expressing any judgment regarding customers’ choices. This was a defining decision, and when Michael returned to Portland in 1979 to join his father, the space of a former car dealership proved necessary for the ever-growing stockpiles of dog-eared novels, freshly printed memoirs, and out-of-print collections of poetry. Thus, Powell’s City of Books was born. (I don’t know about you, but I’m imagining Rafiki from The Lion King triumphantly lifting the whole store into the air. Just me? Okay.)

powellschange

In 1982, Walter sold the business to Michael, and in a flash, it proliferated Portland and the nearby suburbs. Walter unfortunately died in 1985, but he was able to see some of his and Michael’s plans coming to fruition as Powell’s expanded. In 1984, a store in Beaverton became the second location (which was moved to Cedar Hills Crossing in 2006), and two stores on Hawthorne Blvd. were opened shortly afterward in 1986 and ’87. The Hawthorne locations were specialty stores, with Powell’s Technical Books (which closed in March 2010) offering science, math, and engineering books, and Powell’s Books for Home and Gardens offering books about cooking, home improvement, and gardening. In 1988, Powell’s Books PDX was unveiled at the Portland International Airport. Like the other locations, this store sold both new and used books, even allowing travelers to sell their own used books before catching their next flight. As each location opened, Michael remained committed to creating an atmosphere that was welcoming, comfortable, and maintained a sort of industrial look that differed from that of the chain stores.

pillarIn an effort to reach a larger customer base, Powell’s created its first website in 1994. Though the website has evolved over time, even its most basic version immediately proved popular for customers around the world, including the Englishman who made the special request that encouraged the company to settle comfortably into cyberspace in the first place. By 2004, Powells.com required its own 60,000 square-foot warehouse to process the ever-growing number of online orders, as well as to integrate the books the business purchased from customers in the buyback program. However, though Powell’s online presence continues to strengthen, Powell’s flagship location often remains the focus. In 1999, the first round of construction ended, and the current four-story layout was revealed. At the entrance is the Pillar of Books, a carving with the titles of classic books from around the world, and on which Michael’s and Walter’s vision is clearly spelled out: “Coeme Librum (Buy the Book), Lege Librum (Read the Book), Carpe Librum (Enjoy the Book), Vende Librum (Sell the Book).” In the past year, the Green and Blue rooms have been remodeled again to prevent roof leaks, but the spirit of Powell’s books remains unchanged.

In July of 2010, Michael Powell’s daughter Emily took over the business as the president of Powell’s books, continuing the tradition of keeping the business in the family. She was handed the reins when the question of how an independent bookstore can stay afloat as a recession demands layoffs and e-Readers become more popular became increasingly pressing. Despite these challenges, Emily has remained aware of shifts in the industry and conscious of the role Powell’s plays in the community as a link between the past and present, as well as a major shaper of Portland’s future. In A Free Man’s Books: An Address, Archibald MacLeish questions whether “in our lives as well as in our words” we “ascribe as great an influence to the books we write and publish and sell and catalogue and teach” as we claim to (MacLeish 6-7), noting that books have been historically taken for granted. The Powell family seems to have never forgotten just how powerful their product is, though. With the introduction of the self-publishing Espresso Book Machine, the never-ending list of authors invited to interact with their readers, and the business’ engagement with civic issues and youth literacy, it is clear Emily and the new CEO, Miriam Sontz, are up to the challenge of improving Powell’s as both Portland and the book industry transform. After 44 years of storefront makeovers, expansion to new territories, and both causing and embracing change in the revitalized Pearl District, it remains evident that Powell’s Books remains committed to offering a little bit of everything without ever claiming to be the authority on ideas or on what makes for “proper” reading.

 

Sources

Images:
1869 Couch Addition Map (edited). <http://explorethepearl.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/couchs-addition-1891.jpg>
Current Powell’s City of Books. <http://www.bloomberg.com/ss/09/06/0619_best_independent_stores/image/016_powells.jpg>
Pillar of Books. <http://i1272.photobucket.com/albums/y398/sarahndipity16/345151251_190807cba4_z_zps30ad3603.jpg>
Powell’s City of Books, 1980s. <http://files.photosnack.net/albums/images/d9c58a2568d4f45c2932c6i227208746/scale-1000×1000>
Wentworth & Irwin Car Dealership. <https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/10366301_10152393760897552_7119434855334597278_n.jpg?oh=1749427a2c8d6e7c105b204183263fa3&oe=5556BBE5&__gda__=1435163264_17d2f2932487c9c1cb41e6079692c074>

Media:
“A History of Powell’s City of Books.” Dipity. 2015. <http://www.dipity.com/marykate_wust/A-History-of-Powells-City-of-Books-and-the-Pearl-District>
“Powell’s City of Books.” YouTube. 2009. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EklehoXdn-I>

Text:
Jenison, Madge. Sunwise Turn: A Human Comedy of Bookselling. New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, 1923. 16-30, 110-26.
MacLeish, Archibald. A Free Man’s Books: An Address. New York: The Peter Pauper Press, 1942. 5-17.

Websites:
“About Pearl District.” Pearl District Neighborhood Association. 2015. <http://www.pearldistrict.org/about-the-pearl-district/>
Amstutz, Nicolette. “Indie Groundbreaking Bookseller: Powell’s Books.” Independent Publisher. 2012. <http://www.independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1670>
Boule, Margie. “Pearl District’s Namesake Was a Jewel of a Woman.” Oregon Live. 2002. <http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2002/04/pearl_districts_namesake_was_a.html>
Chamberlin, Jeremiah. “Inside Indie Bookstores: Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon.” Poets & Writers. March 2010. <http://www.pw.org/content/inside_indie_bookstores_powell_s_books_in_portland_oregon>
“History of Powell’s Books.” Powells.com. <http://www.powells.com/info/briefhistory.html>
“History of the Pearl District.” Explore the Pearl. 2014. <http://explorethepearl.com/about-the-pearl/history-of-the-pearl-district/>
Kadas, Marianne. “A Brief History of the Pearl District.” Marshall Wells Lofts. 2001. <http://www.marshall-wells.com/historypearl.html>
“Powell’s Books, Inc. History.” Funding Universe. 2001. <http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/powell-s-books-inc-history/>
Raber, Rebecca. “Independent Spirit: Emily Powell, ’00.” Haverford College News. 2012. <http://www.haverford.edu/news/stories/66431/51>
Zuhl, Joanne. “Michael Powell Reflects on Creating the Legendary Bookstore and Keeping It Strong for the Next Generation.” StreetRoots. 2011. <http://news.streetroots.org/2011/02/02/michael-powell-reflects-creating-legendary-book-store-and-keeping-it-strong-next>

Powell’s Past and Places: Success Then and Now

 

What becomes apparent when multiple bookstores are studied, rising and falling, is that there is much to be said for the strategies employed, and the philosophies followed, by booksellers, rather than a reliance on tradition or history. Fitting enough, considering that, as a product of literature, book culture must have a mind for innovation and open-mindedness. Nor must every successful campaign be characterized by its massive hurdles or growth in an unsupportive climate—simple faith and good luck on top of a good idea here and there can reward intrepid businesspeople handsomely.

Now the largest independent bookstore in the world, Powell’s Books is not yet fifty years old. As the site’s own Brief History page notes, Michael Powell first opened his own bookstore in Chicago in 1970, while he was a graduate student at the University of Chicago, just after Waldenbooks had achieved “fifty-nine stores in nineteen states” in 1969, as Laura J. Miller writes (45), and just before the time when “a new wave of mergers and acquisitions took place,” with publishers buying each other out seemingly just to stay afloat (40). Powell was lent $3000 by three professors: Morris Janowitz, Edward Shils, and Saul Bellow (it must have been a good omen that a literary figure of that caliber saw something special in Powell’s idea). Having sold plenty of books among fellow students before, Powell knew that the used paperback market could be lucrative in the right areas; having started with only part of the building space, Powell was able to buy the remaining spaces once the other owners vacated.

Not only was this initial venture very successful for Michael, but his father, Walter, saw something special in the book trade as well and opened a used bookstore in Portland, Oregon, in 1971, where the chain is now based and where all but one of its stores are located (Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing is in the nearby city of Beaverton). This store filled a used American Motors dealership—really filled it, taking every used book that came in.

Eight years after Walter’s store opened, he suggested to Michael that it would be a good time to return to Oregon, and Michael was convinced—he joined his father again, and multiple sides of the book trade were uncharacteristically brought together all at once—the decision to sell new books alongside the used in the same store, which was apparently unheard-of at the time, raised the store to a new level of convenience, assured a non-judgmental feeling for the customer, and created a rock-solid foundation for success.

W Burnside, 1917 (courtesy of vintageportland.wordpress.com) Or, rather, a cement foundation. Powell’s rose up, as Michael put it, in “an undeveloped neighborhood,” consisting of “mostly warehouses, wholesalers, and auto repair shops.” But this general aesthetic of the area surrounding the store, this downtown region, was used to the Powells’ advantage. They deliberately cultivated the industrial look that they had started with—“pine wood [and a] cement floor,” and twelve-foot-tall shelves. Contrary to the observations of other bookstore scholars, Michael Powell felt that it was in fact the brightly-lit, low-shelved chain stores that made customers feel pressured, and that the relative bareness of their own stores and the feeling of fullness resulting from towering shelves created the homiest home for the literary mixing that Powell’s was all about. It is through this ingenuity and friendliness that Powell’s has been able to achieve a scholarly feeling of place, as given, for example, by David Harvey in “From Space to Place and Back Again,” as “a discursive/symbolic meaning well beyond that of mere location” (293).

Of course, this downtown area comes with its own history. “Burnside Street originally was named B Street as part of the ‘Alphabet District’ in northwest Portland,” Portland’s website says. The site also attributes the street’s initial inability to open “respectable businesses” to the way that it drew unsavory people for illicit activities in the 1860s. In 1892 it was named for David W. Burnside, a merchant. The early 1900s saw automotive innovations such as a track for streetcars and Burnside Bridge, and the rest of the .gov website page is seemingly all dedicated to roadway fixes that the street has had to make.

But not all of Powell’s stores are to be found on this once-foreboding downtown street. Two of Powell’s expansions are located on Hawthorne Boulevard: Powell’s Books on Hawthorne, appropriately enough, and Powell’s Books for Home and Garden. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the years in which these two stores opened.

Powell's Books at PDX Powell’s Books at PDX (the bookstore in the Portland International Airport), however, is listed as opening in 1988, and prides itself on being a full used bookstore in an airport, offering the same width of selection as any of the other stores as well as suggestions tailored to the specific traveling conditions of each customer. There used to be three different stores in PDX, but as of last year two of the stores closed.

Powell’s has also served Beaverton since 1984, but it was relatively recently that it opened the store that currently stands, Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, which is almost half the size of the City of Books, boasts what looks to me like an even taller entrance, and, according to Paul Smailes, “[takes] the best elements of all the Powell’s stores and [rolls] them into one [. . .] the big store feel of the City of Books, a very large technical book selection to serve [its] neighbors [. . . and] the largest children’s book section of any book store on the West Coast.” Powell's Books at Cedar Hills Crossing

(Powell’s Technical Books has ceased being its own store as of four months ago and has been merged into the main store, though that’s probably not to say that the selection of technical books has been downsized).

From a book-lover’s standpoint, what is perhaps most heartening about this branching out is that the existence of the megastore on Burnside Street has not in any way prevented these new locations from having distinct feelings; they aren’t built from smaller blueprints of the main store, but have their own unique rooms with defined purposes, like the Madison, Hawthorne, and Tabor rooms in the Hawthorne store, named after landmarks in the area.

But it’s not merely Powell’s physical storefronts that have flourished. The chain was, in fact, one of the first bookstores to hop on the online-retail bubble, in 1994, initially inspired to this level of expansion by a request from an English man to send a technical book. This transaction was $50 cheaper than it would have been had he simply gone through his local store (which would have had to order its copy from the States anyway). While most single purchases of a book are not quite so expensive, the amount of money that this man saved does at least seem proportional with how much cheaper books often are online. Michael Powell himself notes to Jeremiah Chamberlin, however, that “[there] are cheaper places” to order books online, but also that the store’s online sales presence is “steady.” Indeed, Powell’s.com has quickly come to account for between 25-30% of the store’s sales per year. It’s not titanic in the same way as Amazon and AbeBooks can seem to be, but it’s clearly set a good example for the field.

Thus, Powell’s is, today, not just the largest independent bookstore in the world (though that in itself says enough about the store’s success), but also just one of the most successful. As I noted in the timeline, Powell’s has recently had to let a number of its employees go—31, to be exact—in 2011, which was worrying, as such incidents in a bookstore’s history always are; and since Michael handed the store over to his daughter in 2010, the transfer of CEO position to Miriam Sontz a few years later feels like a very fast management turnover. But it seems to me that these factors ultimately say more about the growth of the book industry as a whole, the shifts of stock to different stores, fluctuations in success not only for the small(er) independents, but also megaliths like Borders. Michael feels that Powell’s has become not only a major attraction in Oregon (to paraphrase him, it’s one of three things that will immediately come to mind for a Portland activity), but also a big player in its transformation from a seedy downtown area to a prime location for boutique businesses. To take his point even wider, his store is prominent as a champion of book culture in all its facets.

 

Images

Powell’s Books

Powell’s Books at PDX

W Burnside Street, 1917

Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing

Dipity Timeline

Text

Harvey, David. Justice, Nature, and the Geography of Difference. Blackwell Pub, 1996. 203.

Miller, Laura J. Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. 40, 45.

Websites

The History of Powell’s Books
About Powell’s City of Books
Powell’s Books on Hawthorne
Powell’s Books for Home and Garden
The History of Powell’s.com
Inside Indie Bookstores: Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon
Powell’s Books Announces Layoffs
The Espresso Book Machine Arrives at Powell’s Books
Owner, new CEO of Powell’s Books see strength in brick and mortar
r/Portland
Burnside Street History
Powell’s Wikipedia Page