J. Levine Books & Judaica: Progression of Stuff and Things

Frequently, my parents find me staring at a wall, object, or some nondescript point in the distance. Noticing the expression on my face, they ask what I’m thinking about, and will receive the usual answer: “Stuff…and things.” They may not like the lack of specificity in the answer, but it’s less of a dishonest cop-out than it might initially appear. For every thing I look at, there is likely to be a great deal of stuff my mind associates with it, taking me on a process of thought that could very well have no contextual relevance between all the stuff outside of what I’ve constructed from my own experiences. This linking between ideas (what I like to call “stuff”) and things (which are objects that act as matters of concern beyond the base function) is not a process only I can do. Let’s take a look at some of J. Levine’s bookshelves and see what you come up with.

“Things are what we encounter, ideas are what we project.” -Leo Stein

While the meanings I created from this image are likely not exactly the same as yours, there should be a significant level of overlap. Based on our own experiences, we looked at the spacing, arrangement, and content of the books in the image, and both of our minds went on a chain of thoughts and connections to reach certain ideas and feelings. This, according to Bruno Latour, is what things do to create their own sense of importance: use our experiences to attach meaning to them. With our past experiences of similar sights, the way these shelves are organized gave them a similar meaning to those past experiences, the ideas attached via that proximity.

The Levines seem to be knowledgeable of this cause and effect, and how it can apply not just to “things” in the sense of individual objects, but also “things” such as the location and grouping of objects. As is shown and explained in the diagram below, J. Levine Books & Judaica is a space organized with this association of things and ideas in mind. Each product type is grouped with others that may invoke similar feelings, allowing customers interested in one type to have a similar interest in its neighboring products. The ideas evoked by these things will guide the customer around the store, though the route taken depends on the type of customer, which ideas the customer was initially searching for, and how their path would show them the way to new things and new ideas.

Following the arrows from the entrance and its branching paths around the store, to the back, and returning to the register creates a logical progression of things and ideas. As noted in the diagram, there are two general categories of customers: those who have come in knowing what to get, and the casual shopper. Note that “casual” should not be taken to indicate a person who does not take the Judaica seriously, but rather a person attracted more to the general idea associated with the things in each section of the store more than the specific function of each product as an object. For these casual shoppers, the path splits to designate two subgroups, each with a different idea in mind.

Those attracted to the lower section of the map are intrigued by the aesthetic idea of Judaica they can own in a collection or as decoration. Such things found in this section can vary in purpose from the culturally significant Mezuzah and Kiddush cups to the somewhat comical mini Zionist action figures. Regardless of the importance to the Jewish community of these various objects, the customer who wanders this way does so due to an idea of personal importance sparked by these things. Clifford’s essay on collecting touches on the anthropological nature behind this idea: a fascination with owning artistic and culturally significant objects. Though the things in this section of the store occupy various points on the scale between cultural and artistic, they all find their way into that niche, attracting the attention of interested collectors to one place.

Considering my consistent fixation with these figures across my posts, Clifford is likely on to something.

Customers following the other path are also interested in cultural collecting, though they focus on things that carry with them ideas of learning and enlightenment. Of course, the first selections on this path are introductory books to acclimate the reader to the values present in the more specialized and significant selections towards the back of the store, where followers of this path will meet up with the group following the other path. These books, while less visually stimulating than the Judaica in the other sections of the store, also fulfill their role as things that stimulate ideas and feelings. In fact, the placement of this front section and the back section creates a sense of progression as the customer moves through the store in a single trip, or as they gain the knowledge and familiarity to spend more time in the back with each return to the store, a transition signifying the transformation from the casual shopper to the former type that is ready to move immediately to a section that once seemed physically and mentally more distant.

Due to this layout, and the sense of progression one may feel moving through the store, a multitude of ideas and feelings attach themselves to each thing. Due to this, these things will never become mere objects again, especially in light of Walter Benjamin’s thoughts on collections. Each book in his library held significance not just in terms of content, but also with regard to the thoughts and expectations that accompanied the acquisition of each book as well as the history and memories of himself residing in each copy. Things, whether they are books or Judaica, purchased at J. Levine also have the capacity to retain the identity the customer gave them from the first glance, an identity built on and augmented by the cultural and aesthetic value of each piece as well as the memories of progression and expertise created by the space of the bookstore. This holds true for anything the customer finds. Books and Judaica. Beginner and expert. Object and idea.

Stuff and things.

 

Sources

Images

Bookshelf

Mini Zionist Action Figures

Store Map: Window Display

Store Map: Danny Levine at Register

Store Map: Toys

Store Map: TMNT Kippot

Store Map

Original version of floor plan provided by Danny Levine

Map drawn with MS Paint

Annotations: ThingLink

Texts

Benjamin, Walter. “Unpacking My Library: A Talk about Book Collecting.” Illuminations. New York City: Schocken Books, 1969. 59-67

Brown, Bill. “Thing Theory.” Critical Inquiry Autumn 2001, 1-22.

Clifford. “On Collecting Art and Culture.”

Latour, Bruno. “Why Has Critique Run out of Steam?”

American Dream Comes True in Manhattan: Humble Beginnings to Thriving Bookstore in Midtown

3generations
Danny Levine – 4th Generation, Shawn Levine – 5th Generation, Seymour Levine – 3rd Generation

Back in 1890, Hirsch Lany, a religious scribe in Lithuania began the company now known as  J. Levine Books and Judaica. He distributed copies of the Torah and religious articles in Europe before immigrated to New York City’s Lower East Side, in 1905 where he started what would become a thriving family business spanning over one hundred and twenty years, and five generations.

The store is still, first and foremost, a family-run business. The employees introduce themselves not only by their name, but also their generation. It’s a small personal touch, but communicates to visitors a much more personal atmosphere when stepping into their store. They have also implemented this into their website and social media outlets to further convey this sense of closeness with customers no matter how far away they may be. This sense of family and tradition conveyed by the store assists customers in being included not only in the history of their family, but their “place” as well.

Lower East Side c. 1900s
Lower East Side c. 1900s

Their store is located in Midtown Manhattan, a booming metropolis of tourist attractions and international business; although, that isn’t the company’s original location. They started out on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, in 1905 and remained at that location until the opening of their Midtown location in 1986. Today, New York City’s Lower East Side is much more up-scale than it was in the early 1900’s. As Tim Cresswell writes in Defining Place, “towards the southern tip of Manhattan and to the east of center is an area – a place – known as the Lower East Side. This is an area which has been known as a place of successive immigrant groups – Irish, Jewish, German, Italian, Eastern European, Haitian, Puerto Rican, Chinese.” Cresswell also explains how  a sense of place is dependent on the changing history and general feel of a location, but its the social and economic history as well. The history of a “place” changes as time goes on, although it helps to shape the historical foundation of the location that its in.

Additionally, an article entitled Jewish Bookstores of the Old East Side, by The Spectator was published in 1906 which discussed Jewish and Yiddish literary outlets in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Admittedly the article is extremely biased and makes use of popular stereotypes of the time; however, it gives some helpful insight into the neighborhood dynamic at the time. In a small introduction produced by The Book Peddler, the publishing magazine this article was reprinted by, the reader is told that “the Lower East side harbored more bookstores per capita—and more people ready to talk about books—than any other neighborhood in New York! Reading his account, it is little wonder that 86 years later so many Yiddish bookstores are still to be found among the heirs of the original immigrant population”. These heirsjudaica_book_news2 populating the area J. Levine and Judaica started in were heavily “bookish”. The article goes on to describe the neighborhood as a primarily Yiddish speaking community, so the prevalence of books in the language  were primarily found in this part of New York.

Literature was made more accessible to those speaking Yiddish at the time, and it wasn’t all Jewish. Certain stores had Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Voltaire, Dante, Shelley, etc. There were, of course, religious texts, but the Jewish community at the time was more interested in the availability of texts in a language more widely understood than English in an immigrant community. There is still a large Jewish community in New York City today and although it is no longer on the Lower East Side, and J. Levine and Judaica is no stranger to it. Throughout their history they have worked with their community to help wherever needed, even in providing textbooks to schools. J. Levine and Judaica added books as a way to spur more business, although with book sales dropping somewhat in recent years, they have taken the backseat to their Judaica items in the store.

As times have changed, so must business tactics. J. Levine Books and Judaica began as a continuation of Lany’s work abroad, but with the addition of his son-in-law, J. Levine, it soon expanded to include a variety of different products including embroidery and sewn religious articles. More recent generations have included the implementation of more “modern” products and patterns including singing dreidels, and Mickey Mouse Yarmulkes. On their website they provide a documentary of their store which demonstrates how they’ve moved through the years and many advances they’ve made:


J. Levine Books & Judaica Documentary

The history of their store hit a bumpy road with the addition of online competition, from large companies like Amazon.com. J. Levine Books and Judaica had no choice but to join the 21st century, and have done so successfully with over thirty thousand items on their online store, and three social media outlets They have been able to change and adapt with the times. In an article by The Jewish Week, J. Levine Books and Judaica is said to have changed for modern times to stay afloat “like many traditional bookstores, J. Levine is wrestling with an adapt-or-die reality as it competes with online mega-booksellers such as Amazon. The brick-and-mortar shops have developed a variety of strategies to stay profitable and deal with declining book sales,” (Sales). In this article, Ben Sales also states that from 2000 to 2005 their sales dropped by eighteen percent due to the emergence of Amazon.com. Fortunately, they bounced back with an online store, and strong social media presence. Throughout the history of their store, they’ve adapted in order to stay in the game.

In the timeline below I’ve highlighted the ways J. Levine Books and Judaica has changed and adapted over the years to attract more business and to adjust for more contemporary times.

The most recent addition to the store’s management, fifth generation Shawn J. Levine has been instrumental in their online presence. In the documentary listed above, he articulates that although they have a great number of items available on their online catalog, they are still hoping that people will be wiling to come into their store and have more of a face-to-face interaction.

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From Left to right: David Levine, Shawn Levine, Logan Levine

J. Levine Books and Judaica accomplished what only a fraction of the immigrants having come into the country from Ellis Island were able to. They attained the “American Dream”. An immigrant man moving to New York City to be a successful religious book distributor, ends up beginning a multi-generational family business still centered on their religious ideals. Today, the store has been featured in The New York Times, AP articles, Wall Street Journal, CNN, and YouTube. Now under management of fifth generation Shawn J. Levine, with the help of his father David, the store is headed for nothing but success. In the picture to the right from left to right are David, Shawn, and his daughter sixth generation Logan. Who knows what Logan’s generation will have to bring to the business!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sources:

Books/Articles: 

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

“Jewish Bookstores of the Old East Side.” The Book Peddler; Newsletter of the National Yiddish Book Exchange (n.d.): 20-23. Rpt. in Brandels University Libraries ILL. 17th ed. N.p.: n.p., Summer 1992. Print.

Websites:

J. Levine Books and Judaica
http://www.levinejudaica.com/catalog/index.php

J. Levine Co.A Modern Tradition “JUDAICA BOOK NEWS”, 1981″
http://www.levinejudaica.com/catalog/moderntraditions.html

 

Images:

J. Levine & Judaica 3 generations
https://www.facebook.com/Levinejudaica/photos/a.10151070103493392.439587.43626378391/10151070103528392/?type=1&theater

J. Levine Co. Photo
http://www.levinejudaica.com/catalog/moderntraditions.html

NYC Lower East Side c. 1990s
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mulberry_Street_NYC_c1900_LOC_3g04637u.jpg

Shawn & Daniel Levine
http://www.levinejudaica.com/catalog/index.php

 

Video:
J. Levine and Judaica Documentary (Youtube)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAzpIgYtk9k
Timeline:
created on dipity.com
http://www.dipity.com/ekstranda/J-Levine-Books-Judaica/

 

 

 

 

J. Levine Books & Judaica: An Evolving Business of Family and Community

To some people, carrying on the legacy and contributions your family has brought to the community for generations is important. To not only continue the traditions, but also the work of your parents and their parents (and their parents) can be you the subject of an admirable and heartwarming tale. On the other side of the spectrum, there is the celebration of bringing in something new and fresh to the equation, though preferably with a healthy respect for what previous generations have accomplished. Taking a new turn often works best for some generations, and can also lead to an admirable and heartwarming story. As the son of doctors who spends his days studying books and games, I clearly fall into the latter category. However, not every family’s story is so clear-cut between one or the other, as is the case with the Levines.

Cover photo from J. Levine’s Facebook page, featuring Danny Levine (left), Shawn Levine (middle), and Seymour Levine (right).

For the family behind J. Levine Books and Judaica, this is a story spanning 125 years. With the tale beginning with a Torah supplier named Hirsh Lany in Lithuania, it becomes clear that quite a lot has changed in that time. Nevertheless, each generation following his arrival to America never strayed too far from their roots, sticking with the family business while gradually transforming it into the bookstore we all know and love today. This could place their heartwarming tale close to the fence on what type of story it is, but I would still say they stand firmly on the side of legacy. In spite of the changes and adaptations over the generations, J. Levine has always been a bookstore dedicated to the current needs for each generation of the Jewish community.

Key moments in this bookstore’s evolution can be seen below.

Yes, I said “evolution.” Each point on this timeline depicts a moment in which the bookstore adapted itself to better fit the needs of the community. Laura Miller refers to community as “social bonds based on affective ties and mutual support” (119), and if the story of Lany and the Levines is any indication, nothing could be more important to their business than this idea of community. This is evident in the company’s first transformation from Lithuanian to American. While the Jewish community was dying out in Lithuania, it was growing in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Lany simply followed to where he could continue to serve in mutual support for the community.

The Levines display the works of professionals from throughout the community.

Though none of the future changes or decisions were as drastic or urgent as what Lany had to do, each generation followed in his footsteps and continued to alter the function of the bookstore as time went on. When their times came to take charge of the family business, Joseph and Seymour both looked to the community (though this is much more obvious in Seymour’s case). These adaptations are similar to trends Miller noted in other bookstores, which expanded the nature of their businesses to include services and goods beyond bookselling. It wouldn’t be until Danny’s run of the store when we would see additions such as Batman-inspired Judaica and Zionist Action Figures, but for their part, Joseph and Seymour’s expansions greatly altered the initially narrow function of J. Levine into something that would continue to contribute to an ever-evolving customer base and community.

J. Levine continues to evolve, keeping up with the digital age with their website allowing for online orders and assistance to members of the global community. However, appeasing the global community is only part of the picture. J. Levine’s success is owed to how the company has coexisted with the local community. As it turns out, the Lower East Side was the perfect place for a Jewish bookstore to set up shop. According to an old (and admittedly biased) article from The Outlook, the Jewish community of the Lower East Side was obsessed with Yiddish literature. Nowhere else had the author seen such a collection of cooperating bookstores (though their cooperation may not have quite as close to the level of “trust-evil” as he implied). Though flawed in its portrayal of the community, the article does get at the spirit of a neighborhood that showed tremendous support for endeavors in knowledge and culture such as the bookstore.

Of course, this support was mutual. While the customers in the community hungered for Yiddish texts (and other Jewish goods), the salesmen were ready to sate that appetite with the right book. Wanting to have the right books for regulars in the community is not an uncommon trait for independent bookstores, and has been a sentiment shared by various owners, such as Madge Jenison of Sunwise Turn. Just as each generation behind J. Levine had been ready to adapt to the needs of the community as a whole, so too were they capable in satisfying individuals within the community. Danny attributes the success of J. Levine to the dedication of booksellers such as Rabbi Philip Kastel, who knew their full stock of books just as well as he knew every one of their customers during his time as a manager, just as much as he does to his family’s ability to adapt.

Such dedication to the community has been the central theme of J. Levine’s story for five generations, and it shows no sign of changing. The family legacy of the Levines is not just the bookstore, but also their devotion to the community. This dedication has taken different forms with each generation as the store evolved, but each turn and variation was each son’s take on fulfilling their fathers’ legacy. I might not be the most qualified to tell you what this story all means in the end, since the responsibilities I’ll be taking up in life are wildly different from my father’s. For that, you should read the anecdote in this article about Seymour. You might find what he says to be admirable and heartwarming.

 

Sources

Images

Danny, Shawn, and Seymour Levine

Levines with Display

Timeline: “Expansion”

Timeline: “Today”

Timeline

Dipity: J. Levine Books and Judaica History

Texts

Jenison, Madge. Sunwise Turn: A Human Comedy of Bookselling. New York City: E.P. Dutton & Company, 1923.

“Jewish Bookstores of the Old East Side.” The Book Peddler Summer 1992, 20-23.

Miller, Lauren J. Reluctant Capitalists. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Websites

J. Levine Books & Judaica

J. Levine Books & Judaica in the Media

J. Levine Books & Judaica on Facebook

J. Levine: Who We Are

The Jewish Week

New York Times: The Media Business

The Strand and Book Row: A History

History of the Strand on Dipity.

The Strand Bookstore is now ubiquitous with the common notion of the used bookstore. Walking past the 18 mile, several building store, its imposing largeness would make you think that the Strand has always been the large, well known bookstore that every book fiend flocks to while in New York. This is of course not the case, as the Strand has a history as rich and large as the insides of its large store.

If you take the time to look around the Strand bookstore with Google street view, you can see the main area’s of Greenwich Village, full of independent stores, coffee shops and movie theaters. The Strands wrap around banner has become as well known as the store itself. It gives the book lover just a taste of how long the bookstore really is. However, what many people do not know is that the Strand’s current location is not its original location.

The Strand was started in 1927, by founded by Benjamin Bass on 4th Avenue. At the time, the Strand would have not stood out solely own its own merits, for a very good reason. The Strand was located on Book Row, a collection of streets “six blocks from Union Square to Astor Place in Manhattan, a corridor of three dozen shops selling used books” (The New York Times). Walking into the shops one by one could take over a week, as there was much to see and many books to buy. Interestingly enough, many of the booksellers on book row were not like the jovial Professor that we see in the novel Parnassus on Wheels, but had a much more unlikable temperament, as shown in the video below.

 

“They hated you,” says Fran Leibowitz in the video above, “it was like you had broken into their house.”

Sadly, yet unsurprisingly, the Strand is the last of all of these used bookstores that exists today.

“I think what happened to Book Row” says current Strand owner Fred Bass, “is that it was run by a lot of interesting, strong, self centered individuals, including my dad, and very few of them imparted knowledge to the younger generation.”

The Strand in its original location in Book Row
The Strand on Book Row

Laura Miller writes in her book Reluctant Capitalists that “a booksellers judgement about what books to carry and sell is shaped by the extent at which she sees herself as rightfully taking an active role in guiding the reading of her customers” (55). Its increasingly obvious that most of the booksellers on book row did not subscribe to the idea of guiding their readers.

“The sort of thing that goes on now at Barnes and Nobel, where they give you service with a smile and have coffee,” says Marvin Mondlind, the estate book buyer for Strand, “old Book Row people would have just scorned the whole thing. We’re selling books here, and if people don’t want old books we don’t want them here.”

The original Book Row
The original Book Row

The days of Book Row have ended, and now there are less then ten used bookstores in New York City. However, Benjamin Bass did not seem to be as overwhelmed with the snobbish attitude of his bookselling peers. Benjamin was “twenty-five years old when he began his modest used bookstore. An entrepreneur at heart and a reader by nature, this erudite man began with $300 dollars of his own and $300 dollars that he borrowed from a friend” (Strand website). Unlike his fellow bookstore owners, who would throw you out of their shops for no reason whatsoever, Ben “create a place where books would be loved, and book lovers could congregate” (Strand website).

He hired his son Fred to start working at the store while Fred was still in high school, where Fred would develop a love for the trade and selling of books. After serving a tour in Armed Forces, Fred joined his father working at the Strand, and would eventually take over the business when his father retired. Like how Christopher Morley feels, Fred Bass seems to consider it his “duty and a privilege” to sell books (46).

It would be soon after Fred tool over the Strand that the once powerful Book Row would begin to disappear. In 1958, the Strand lost its lease due to their landlord dying, and the small bookshop could no longer afford to stay in their current location.

”My rent tripled,” said Fred Bass, talking to the New York Times. ”But I bit the bullet and I made the deal. If I was 10 or 15 years older I might have quit. But I’ve got a lot of young people. I’ve got an organization here.’’

The store then moved to its current location on 12th and Broadway, continuing its progression as the only used bookstore left from Book Row. As the bookstore continued its transformation, so did the surrounding neighborhood of Greenwich Village. It would be around this time that the village would become known as an artist bohemia. After the horrors American youth had seen in WWII, a new kind of youth was emerging from the shadows.

As profiled in a 1951 TIME magazine profile on American youth:

“Some are smoking marijuana; some are dying in Korea. Some are going to college with their wives; some are making $400 a week in television. Some are sure they will be blown to bits by the atom bomb. Some pray. Some are raising the highest towers and running the fastest machines in the world. Some wear blue jeans; some wear Dior gowns. Some want to vote the straight Republican ticket. Some want to fly to the moon.”

images-1

Many of the more artistically and book inclined youth were coming to Greenwich, clashing with the original Italian neighborhood. The “image of the Village as the heart of New York subculture, the neighborhood still retained a significant immigrant element. Though the Italian immigrant population of the Village experienced a steady decline starting after World War I, by 1960 there were still nearly 9,000 persons of Italian birth and parentage in the South Village.” Conflict between the Italians and the new bohemians was very common, with many fights breaking out.

“I had seen plenty of [racism] in the Village of 1953-54,” said Diane Di Prima, “when Italians would swarm up MacDougal Street en masse from below Bleecker to threaten or wipe out a Black man for coming to the Village with a white woman”

The new bohemians, also known as the Beat generation, helped the Strand create its notoriety as a mecca for book lovers. As the bohemians grew is size, so did the store. by 1973, plans to remodel the store to make it bigger, growing total space to 21,000 square feet. By 1979 the major remodels would be completed, and by 1997 the Bass family would buy the building for $8.2 million, cementing their place forever among Greenwich village as one of the few used bookstores that was not going to disappear.

Nancy Bass and Fred Bass
Nancy Bass and Fred Bass

Around 1987 the Strand tradition of keeping the business in the family would continue when Fred’s daughter, Nancy Bass, would join the business to co-manage the store with her father. Nancy, like her father, grew up in the bookstore, her fist job being sharpening pencils for the Strand Staff at the age of six. Though she tried to work at a different place of business then her father after college, “books were in her blood,” and eventually she followed her father to start working at the Strand. She now oversees the behind the scenes business at the Strand, while Fred remains mostly up front, interacting and forming relationships with customers, both long time and new.

The Strand bookstore has made a truly remarkable transformations, being once a small bookshop among many to the largest used bookstore in the world, carrying over 2.5 million books, as well as other merchandise. Its obvious, looking at the history of the Strand and other stores on Book Row, that the Strand knew what other booksellers did not: that forming a relationship with ones customer is more important that ones snobbery when it comes to books.

Sources:

Images:

The Strand on Book Row: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2007/06/the_strand_turns_80.html

Book Row: https://nyhistorywalks.wordpress.com/2012/02/20/the-books-of-new-york-past/

Greenwich Village: http://www.heartofavagabond.com/things-new-york-counter-culture-bohemia-greenwich-village/

Fred and Nancy Bass: http://www.zimbio.com/photos/Nancy+Bass+Wyden/Fred+Bass

Maps:

Google Maps: The Strand Bookstore

Text:

Print: Morley, Christopher. Ex Libris Carissimis. New York: A.S. Barnes & Company, Inc

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

Book Row Is Gone, But Used Bookshops Aren’t: http://www.nytimes.com/1988/03/13/nyregion/book-row-is-gone-but-used-bookshops-aren-t.html

The Late 20th Century (1950-1999): http://creatingdigitalhistory.wikidot.com/late20thc

STRAND BOOKSTORE: Crain New York Business: http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA208046463&v=2.1&u=susqu_main&it=r&p=ITOF&sw=w&asid=cfecb3922c81bed86bf2ad2d93ccb4fd

Strand History: http://www.strandbooks.com/strand-history

Timeline:

History of the Strand on Dipity

Video:

Book Row: The history of the Strand Bookstore with Fran Lebowitz: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Wl9zhC-snY

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

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>