Black, Feminist, & Bookish: How a Brooklyn Bookshop Brews an Intersectional Community

Black, Feminist, & Bookish: How a Brooklyn Bookshop Brews an Intersectional Community

By: Janelle Cass, Megan DeAngelo, Jennifer Martin, Ellie Pasquale, and Annie Villamarin

Café Con Libros in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, catches the interest of the busy New York City public through the scent of rich coffee and pastries, as well as a colorful window display. Owner Kalima DeSuze curates a collection of literature that uplifts and empowers women’s voices from intersectional identities. As an Afro-Latinx woman, she is dedicated to sharing stories that reflect the intersectionality of the modern feminist movement. 

The interior of Cafe Con Libros. Image from @cafeconlibros_bk

The emphasis on celebration and love is strong behind the doors of this intimate bookstore, where book clubs are held for titles written by or for feminists and women of color.

Its warm and cozy atmosphere is inviting and contagious, welcoming intersectionality and community into its quaint but open space. The creation of this bookshop has a story that may not be written in novel form, but it is shown through its location’s past, its efforts in the present to make feminist books more accessible, and all the possibilities it inspires for the future book-loving community.  

Grounds for Resistance: The History of Crown Heights

Café Con Libros of Crown Heights, Brooklyn was founded in 2017 by social activist, new mother, teacher, and Afro-Latinx woman, Kalima Desuze. The location of Café con Libros was not chosen by chance but through DeSuze’s deep history with the area. She had been a resident of the area for most of her life, living with her Panamanian immigrant parents (Giwa). The actual building of Café con Libros was owned by a relative, Linda DeSuze, dating back to 1985, so it seemed only right to start this passion project in a community she had grown up in, where she knew what kind of bookstore it needed (NYC Dept.).

The population of Afro-Caribbean and Jewish families began long before DeSuze’s parents arrived, even before they were born. The settlement of the region began in the 1830s with two small villages founded by African Americans, called Weeksville and Carrville, where a large free Black population grew (Schaefer 350). When the villages were destroyed during the urbanization of the area in the late 1910s, Crown Heights became home to “an upwardly mobile, rapidly assimilating elite of Eastern European Jews and other White European immigrants” (Schaefer 350). Later, the population boomed in the 1940s and 1950s when a rush of Jewish and Afro-Caribbean immigrants joined the community, attracted to the country’s thriving wartime economy (Schaefer 350). 

Crown Heights begins as a place for freed Black people in the United States, yet it turns into an intersectional neighborhood as time wears on, leading to some inevitable conflicts. On August 19, 1991, two African American cousins, Gavin and Angela Cato, were riding their bikes at the intersection of Utica Avenue and President Street—less than two miles away from where Café con Libros currently stands—when Orthodox Jewish Driver, Yosefl Lifsch, swerved onto the sidewalk. Gavin was killed and Angela survived, though she was severely injured. Rumors were spread that Lifsch was drunk driving, but they were later debunked, and the swerve was believed to have been deliberate. 

A few hours later, a group of Black youths stabbed Yankel Rosenbaum, a visiting Orthodox Jew, and the stabbing was seen as a retaliation to the recent accident. Though he initially survived the stabbing, Rosenbaum died from bleeding in an undetected wound. Riots lasted anywhere from three to five days according to different sources, and homes, businesses, and vehicles were destroyed. Even before the riots, there was harboring resentment between the Black and Jewish communities in Crown Heights, because the Black residents believed that the Jewish residents had received special protection from law enforcement due to a police redistricting decision in 1976.  

David Dinkins, Mayor of New York, intervenes in an argument between a Jewish man and a Black man. Photo taken by Time.

These riots were the result of two communities, both victims of oppression, wanting justice for their friends and family. Yet this shows the difficulties that can arise when intersectionality is not embraced but resisted. When Kalima DeSuze decided to open Café con Libros, it’s no mystery why she aimed to empower feminist and Afro-Latina voices. DeSuze is bringing to light intersectional identities that felt unseen and unheard in literature and Crown Heights. Daphne Spain expresses the importance of diverse female stories to the feminist movement in the 1970s, stating, “Feminist bookstores sustained and enriched the women’s movement when they disseminated literature by women of differing cultures, ethnicities, races, and sexual preferences” (89). This principle is still effective in the modern day through DeSuze’s bookshop. By creating a community dedicated to uplifting the writing and experiences of women of color, she is not only enriching the feminist movement but also enriching the neighborhood by embracing intersectional identities. She is actively creating a community for people like her, who felt so isolated in a neighborhood where identities are divided cleanly from one another by a history of violence and tension. 

Timeline made by Megan DeAngelo using Time Graphics.

Order Up! How the Shop Serves Its Community Today

Café Con Libros is an intersectional feminist bookshop and café catered to, made for, and beloved by its Brooklyn neighborhood. There’s a homey and amicable sense of belonging emanating from its walls. As the Edinburgh academic Tim Cresswell describes in his book Place: A Short Introduction, “They [places] are all spaces which people have made meaningful. They are all spaces people are attached to in one way or another.” The patrons and employees of Café con Libros have certainly made the bookshop a meaningful place.

“Café Con Libros and its patrons have become one of my most cherished safe spaces. For a while now, I have been reckoning with shifts in friendships and craving community that shares my values. Café Con Libros and the WoC book club have satisfied that craving. Having the opportunity to engage in nuanced discussions about rich literature with other bookish folx has reminded me of the beauty and necessity of community.” -Melika Butcher 

The spaces around the bookshop also contribute greatly to the community aspect of Café con Libros. Many are educational, including the Brooklyn Museum and the Children’s Brooklyn Museum, as well as several schools, encouraging children to visit the shop with their friends or guardians on their daily route. DeSuze takes care to recognize this by curating a special collection of children’s books for “budding feminists”. 

Map created by Megan DeAngelo using Google My Maps. Red marks places of worship, green marks schools, purple marks the Children’s Museum, and blue marks Cafe Con Libros.

Of course, this isn’t to say that the Crown Heights area is the most ideal place. When you take a closer look at the community surrounding Café con Libros, it is easy to see the turmoil within it. The soft turquoise storefront stands on the frontlines of an uphill battle to unify an increasingly gentrified community. 

Kalima DeSuze grew up a six-minute walk away from the shop, a place she says was once-crowded with old community convenience stores and African hair-braiding spots that have all since disappeared. Between 2000 and 2015, the Crown Heights area saw a 23% decrease in Black residents and a 205% increase in White residents (“Observer”). The median rent shot up from $870 to $1230, according to a study conducted by NYU’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. Gone is the mostly Black and low-income neighborhood she knew as a girl. In its place, a tense population divided by race and class now bustles around one another, unsure of how to make peace with and live together (“Fernández”). 

Bookshops are a way for people to connect despite drastic changes in their community. Brooklyn is home to over 25 different bookshops, but Café con Libros makes a bold stand from the rest. All thanks to Kalima DeSuze’s extraordinary community work.

Along with running the bookshop, DeSuze is a social worker, a professor of social work, and an anti-racist community organizer, which she says greatly impacts every decision she makes about the shop. She carefully picks every aspect of the bookshop to cater to the feeling of acceptance and freedom within this community. The titles, events, and authors are handpicked to cater to this community. Even the name of the bookshop is an homage to DeSuze’s Afro-Latina roots, a nod to café con leche.   

Not only is DeSuze creating a space for this community, but she is also reclaiming the place of the café. DeSuze explains in an interview with Black-Owned Brooklyn that, “A café is the number one marker of gentrification in most communities of color, and I’ve had to wrestle with that and how people view me. Sometimes people will walk right past because they don’t believe the space is for them, and this is so incredibly painful.” 

In her book Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Competition, Laura J. Miller writes about what exactly community is and how it works within a grander scheme of things, “Community implies social bonds based on affective ties and mutual support […]” (119). Above all else, Café con Libros is a bookshop for the Black, intersectional feminist community, providing support and connection.

Photo of outside Cafe Con Libros taken by Janelle Cass.

Café con Libros is perhaps the most dedicated business to fostering and engaging with the community that most people have ever seen. Between their locally sourced pastries, their multiple book clubs, and their events that uplift other small businesses in Brooklyn, womxn authors, and cultural events, Café con Libros is determined to make themselves a meaningful place to anyone who walks through their doors. 

An Open Space and An Open Mind: Small Space for a Big Community

Tucked behind a cozy curtain of sage, forest, seafoam, and bottle-green ivy hangs a stark black and white awning. “BLACK, FEMINIST, & BOOKISH” it reads — but only on weeks that follow a good hedge trimming. That’s okay, though. The locals that frequent the shop already know what it says. A pride flag, as well as the flag of Panama — where the owner Kalima DeSuze hails from — proudly hang side by side in the window.

The layout of the shop feels like an attempt at bridging a connection between the turbulent past and the relentlessly hopeful present of the surrounding neighborhood. The open layout acts as a metaphor for openness, serving as a peace offering and a neutral ground for a once-divided community to come together and share stories. 

Readers will quickly take notice of DeSuze’s effort to disprove the misconception that feminism is only for “white folk” (Fernández). The left-hand window features books like The Crunk Feminist Collection and The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae. Beside them stand My Broken Language: A Memoir by Quiara Alegría Hudes and Las Madres by Esmeralda Santiago.

The wooden shelves in the right window display an extensive collection of diverse children’s books. There are titles such as La Guitarrista by Lucky Diaz, illustrated by Micah Player, and Los coquíes aún cantan by Karina Nichole González, illustrated by Krystal Quiles.

Books written in Spanish as well as English reiterate this mission of intersectionality and reflect the rich ethnic make-up of their New York area. The collection also showcases DeSuze’s multifaceted desire to challenge her Afro-Latinx community’s views on feminism by mirroring their experiences and giving them a reason to feel a part of the shop’s narrative. As her neighborhood continues to grow and change, she doesn’t want her shop to be limiting or divisive. She wants it to be unifying.

Floor plan made by Jennifer Martin using ThingLink.

The sunlight from the nearly floor-to-ceiling-sized windows brightens the hardwood of the small, one-room shop and illuminates the white shelves, which are piled high with black, queer, feminist, and classic literature. Trendy cream-colored tote bags decorate exposed, old-fashioned brick walls. 

Lyndsie Manusos from BookRiot points out that lighting has become an increasingly important part of nailing down a bookshop’s sense of design. Café con Libros has certainly paid special attention to the “vibe” in their shop in this regard. The natural lighting not only creates space, but also an inviting place for folks to browse books while sipping a coffee. This reflects Café con Libros’ mission of being a community space where people would want to stop by and hang out.

A small circular table sits to the immediate right of the door, highlighting books from local writers in a popular “customer-facing” design that Manusos also calls modern, eye-stopping, and customer-first (Manusos). Small shelves by the window display staff-picked books for another anchoring touch of community. A bundle of tote bags hangs on a rustic rail beside it. 

The remainder of the right wall is an impressively large bookcase that displays Café Con Libros’ main collection. Tiny tags with elegant, cursive script denote the shelves with hyper-specific genres and age categories. From left to right, the inventory covers cookbooks, spirituality, and healing before moving into fiction like “LGBTQIA+ literature,” “Queer Romance,” “Asian Diaspora,” “Indigenous Writing,” “Young Adult,” “Latina Reads,” “Science Fiction and Fantasy,” “Graphic Novels,” and “Young Adult,” just to name a few. There are even “not-book” items like little embroidered signs and metal figurines that make the shelves feel homey, just as the writer Lydia Pyne describes in BookShelf. It is a way to “declare one’s identity and individuality” (23 Pyne). Café con Libros holds over two hundred books and each one is handpicked by Kalima DeSuze herself (Best of Brooklyn). The wall feels like a personal collection.


The right wall of Cafe Con Libros, featuring the store’s main collection. Image above taken by Susan De Vries. Image to the right is from Kelsey F. on Yelp.

​As the academic Daphne Spain argues in her study of Feminist Bookstores, women visit feminist bookstores specifically “to see themselves in the books, and the ways books were displayed simplified their search. It was important to stock books by and about African American and Latina women, and equally important to make those collections visible” (88 Spain). According to Café Con Libros’ website, the shop aims to “offer feminist texts for all personalities, political affiliations, temperaments, and tastes.” Their selection means to “represent as many identities as possible.” The abundance of hyper-specific genres captures this intention. 

Understandably, the black feminist classics are front and center. Kalima DeSuze’s favorite book, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, is always faced out to customers (Abi). Shelf tags like “Modern Black Feminism” and “Black Feminist Classics” have the largest collections, and establish the shop as a landmark location for black feminist book-lovers.

The entire top shelf of the bookcase, miscellaneously marked “Feminist Novels,” continues off the right wall and onto the back wall as well, right above the coffee bar, which takes up the entire back right-hand corner of the shop. 

Their tiny cafe has a rustic yet simultaneously hip and minimalist aesthetic. Mugs hang from the walls, dark umber wood coats the countertop, and a small iPad sits in the place of a traditional register. Coffee is cheap, their largest latte only costing $4, but criminally delicious.

Continuing through the store clockwise, customers travel from womanhood to girlhood. A sign reading “It’s a girl’s world” to the right of the bar marks the threshold of this new portion of the shop: the children’s section, or the place Café Con Libros affectionately reserves for their “baby, budding feminists” (“Café Con Libros”).

This expanse of wall carries colorful toys, puzzles, and stuffies, as well as an entire bookcase of picture and board books. The tags in this section vary from age categories like “Baby” to genre-specific ones like “LGBTQIA+” and “Civil Rights.” There’s a round table at the end of this wall, symmetrical to the other half of the shop, that features children’s books written by local authors.

Unlike objects in a museum that often require plaques for historical context and meaning, the objects of a bookshop speak for themselves. They carry their own narrative. She doesn’t insist that all women are the same, but builds a library of all the ways they are different. DeSuze makes a reason to celebrate it, placing them all together in the same bookcase in the same shop. She resists the sort of other-ing and separatism that first poisoned her neighborhood. 

The design of the shop feels modern, yet historic. Young, yet timeless. To circle the quaint space feels like an invitation to travel both forward and backward in time, to touch and listen to literary objects as they speak their stories, to find the intersection between books penned by and for women of all different bodies, beliefs, and backgrounds. 

Closing the Book: A Reflection on Café Con Libros

The turnout for Cafe Con Libros’ book club meeting for Lab Girl by Hope Jahren. Image taken by Chris Setter

Café con Libros curates a book-loving community that thrives on intersectionality and celebration of culture in a city full of it. The rich history of Crown Heights emphasizes the need for an open space where all are invited to learn and grow from one another’s experiences. Kalima DeSuze runs with this mission in the shop today — developing and adapting new programs and ideas to reach more people within her community, from a podcast she started during the pandemic to a book subscription service she launched this year. The layout only strengthens this narrative with shelves dedicated to different diasporas and an open floor that encourages gathering and can be easily converted into a hub for local events. 

Trailer for “Black Feminist & Bookish,” a podcast made by Cafe Con Libros.

DeSuze is ultimately a community builder. All are invited to spend an afternoon in the cozy space of Café Con Libros, bumping elbows at book clubs while sipping their warm mugs of coffee and cracking open the spine of a new paperback. She designed Café Con Libros to not only be a mirror for the community’s past, but also a window to see its future.

Text Citations

“10 Best Cafes in Crown Heights.” Your Brooklyn Guide, 13 June 2022, yourbrooklynguide.com/cafes-in-crown-heights/.  

“Brooklyn Borough, Kings County, NY.” Census Reporter, censusreporter.org/profiles/06000US3604710022-brooklyn-borough-kings-county-ny/. Accessed 18 Sept. 2023.  

“Cafe Con Libros.” Black-Owned Brooklyn, 1 Mar. 2018, www.blackownedbrooklyn.com/stories/cafe-con-libros.  

“Cafe Con Libros.” Cafe Con Libros, 2018, www.cafeconlibrosbk.com/.  

Cresswell, Tim. “Defining Place.” Place: An Introduction, 2013, p 7.

Fernandez, Stacey. “This Afro-Latina’s Feminist Bookstore Is Building Community in Gentrifying Crown Heights.” Remezcla, 10 Mar. 2018, remezcla.com/features/culture/this-afro-latinas-feminist-bookstore-is-building-community-in-gentrifying-crown-heights/.

Giwa, Cynthia. “Cafe Con Libros.” Black-Owned Brooklyn, 1 Mar. 2018, www.blackownedbrooklyn.com/stories/cafe-con-libros.  

Manusos, Lyndsie. “The Science and Recent History of Bookstore Design.” Book Riot, 22 Feb. 2022, bookriot.com/the-science-and-recent-history-of-bookstore-design/. 

“Menu: Cafe Con Libros.” Cafe Con Libros, www.cafeconlibrosbk.com/menu. Accessed 1 Nov. 2023.

Miller, Laura J. “Serving the Entertained Consumer.” Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption, 2007, p. 119.

NYC Department of Finance, Office of the City Register. Deed to 724 Prospect Place. Automated City Register Information System, 5 December 1985, https://a836-acris.nyc.gov/DS/DocumentSearch/DocumentDetail?doc_id=FT_3010009032901

Pyne, Lydia. Bookshelf. Bloomsbury Academic, 2019. 

Schaefer, Richard T. Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society. SAGE, 2008.

Spain, Daphne. “Feminist Bookstores: Building Identity.” Constructive Feminism: Women’s Spaces and Women’s Rights in the American City, Cornell University Press, 2016, pp. 84-110.

Staff, Bklyner. “What Does the New Census Data Tell Us About Brooklyn?” Bklyner, 13 Aug. 2021, bklyner.com/brooklyn-census-2020/. Stout, David. “The Case That Rocked Crown Heights.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 15 Aug. 1996, www.nytimes.com/1996/08/15/nyregion/the-case-that-rocked-crown-heights.html.

Image, Video, and Audio Citations

Black Feminist & Bookish. “Black Feminist & Bookish.” Spotify.

Cafe con Libros. @cafeconlibros_bk. Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/cafeconlibros_bk/

“Portraits by Chris Setter.” NYC Photographer Chris Setter, www.chrissetter.com/. Accessed 18 Sept. 2023. 

F., Kelsey. Yelp. https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=nL8Ub9QbzrSqWY0LlJMxpA. Accessed 1 Nov. 2020

“The Alliance Between America’s Black and Jewish Activists Has Long Been Troubled” by Arica Coleman, 22 Aug. 2016. TIME, https://time.com/4460730/crown-heights-anniversary-blm-platform/.

Library Express – Searching for stability as the Electric City flickers

Library Express – Searching for stability as the Electric City flickers

“Bookstores come and bookstores go, but perhaps the library is forever.”

It’s an eye-catching quote, isn’t it? For that reason, I don’t feel too bad for making it up. It’s not exactly what Carrión said when discussing the two, but it might as well have been. In chapter 2 of “Bookshops: A Reader’s History”, Carrión characterizes the libraries as endpoint collections for literature, propped up and sanctioned by their connections to authority (Carrión, p. 41). Bookstores, on the other hand, are much more mercurial and nebulous: they exist to sell their wares for a short time, and then disappear into the annals of history, forgotten as institutions, while historians wax over the lost and found libraries of old in their modern libraries. One might even infer some sort of libertarian ideology here – the idea that the library and all its authority stands in opposition to the poor little bookstore, overshadowing it and sucking wares from it until the latter dries up.  If that’s what is said about the two individually, one must then naturally wonder what could be said about Scranton’s Library Express as the child and thus inheritor of the two conflicting approaches to text acquisition.

Though it might be one of the lone bookstores in Scranton, the Library Express does not stand alone. The Library Express is a part of the larger Lackawanna County Library System, and thus shares its history in that. The Library’s proprietor has its public-facing offices about four blocks away, down at the Scranton Children’s Library and its private offices down at the Silkman House. Both are housed in historical buildings, purchased and subsequently refurbished by the Scranton Public Library board: the latter was home to the Christian Science Church and the other one of the oldest buildings in Scranton.

Silkman House, circa 1936, image taken by the National Park Service. At this time, the building was still inhabited by a member of the Silkman family, and would not open as a library for two more years.

However, while the history of these two buildings and how they came to be acquired as government property from private enterprises is interesting, their previous proprietors are certainly not as indicative of Scranton’s history as the Albright Library’s is.

Postcard, circa 1930 and 1945

The Albright Library is the keystone library of the Electric City and its historical first, located just next to the Children’s Library, meaning only four blocks down from the Steamtown Mall. The Albright building, as one could gather from the name, was originally the home of the Albrights, a multigenerational family of coal, iron/steel, railroad and bank magnates throughout the late 1800’s. While the age might have been known as the “Gilded Age”, the splendor was quickly chipped away to reveal the rusty, sooty history underneath the surface: soon after the Albright family donated the library, they moved their industry out of the city, leaving many of the workers unemployed. Though in the eyes of the capitalists it might have just been a move of economic passion (westward was, quite literally, gold, and oil, too!), this betrayal must have been viewed as an act of retribution by the workers: in the years just prior to the Albright’s leaving, the Scranton coal workers went on the biggest coal strike that Luzerne and Lackawanna counties had ever seen. Terence V. Powderley, former mayor of the Electric City, was soon ejected from the largest union in America, the equally famous and infamous Knights of Labor. Without any leadership from unionist or industrialist, their city was left to decompose, the only memory of capitalist goodwill being the library, and nothing else left to fill the hole that the mining industry left but resentment.

It was in these years of the growing Rust Belt, as the businesses that abandoned Scranton soon came to abandon American workers entirely, that the library gradually expanded itself throughout the city, buying old landmarks that once belonged to the richest families of Scranton, and refurbishing them into wings of its organization.

As I discussed in my last post, that economic rut and rot that characterizes the Rust Belt has still not alleviated in Scranton, despite the good intentions of many such businessmen to add a new color of paint. The mall itself in which the Marketplace @ Steamtown is held started out that way – an economic venture to hopefully garner community spirit and a new jolt of life for the Electric City’s circuit – as did the Museum out back.

Has it been working? Well, it doesn’t seem like it, though there’s no real data to quantify if it has or hasn’t been.

I tried to find data on the stores that opened and closed in Scranton, but unfortunately such information is not gathered and treated like the government census and instead falls into the opportune laps of market research firms. Any information that would have been compiled is then locked behind pretty steep paywalls and services that would take a whole new academic program for me to become acquainted with. In some ways, it’s almost a mini library versus bookstore dichotomy.

What I was able to find, in plentiful amount, was complaints about the dying city and its similarly struggling economy. Most humorous to me were pictures from just one year ago, from the subreddit “Dead Malls”, dedicated to the cataloguing of the dead mall late-stage-capitalist phenomenon.

The Marketplace At Steamtown, Scranton, PA.
byu/VisualDimension292 indeadmalls

More interesting, though, was an old forum on “city-data.com” in 2008, where users discussed recent business closures in the city. However, like many classic forums do, it eventually derailed into political arguments about the intentions of mayors, with business owners even chiming into remind readers that the rumors of their stores’ deaths were greatly exaggerated: much like Rust Belt industries, the petit bourgeoisie had simply moved shop elsewhere.

Most interesting of all to me was the information that a Barnes & Nobles had, in fact, once called the Marketplace @ Steamtown home, much like Library Express does now. Interestingly, this means that some of these forum user’s prayers were answered in a roundabout way. While Anthology books mysteriously closed without a trace back in 2011, a bookstore did return to the mall a year later: the Library Express.

However, as the forum users explain, niche markets are an issue for businesses in Scranton. Books are apparently niche enough to drive two dedicated bookstores away from the city’s disinterested customers less than five years before the Library Express opened.

So, why did the Library Express open up in a dying Rust Belt city where the last bookstore so quickly closed up shop before it and the people are so virulently opposed to small businesses out of economic necessity? Clearly, the Library did not do so out of profit: if that was the case, a dead mall with minimal foot traffic is a terrible move, especially when the Library can and already has bought and refurbishing real-estate instead of renting it before. It was not done for accessibility, or for passion, or for learning, as all of these are redundant when the Lackawanna County Library System already has so many nodes spread out throughout the city.

It must be out of ideology, then, akin to Una Mulzac’s Liberation Bookstore and other bookstores like it (Davis 38). Unlike those bookstores, though, the Library Express is not just a place of learning or programming. While it certainly is and does function as that, it is redundant with the library in this way. Its place in promoting the small-business open-night “First Friday” trend across the state is quite telling. Library Express exists to fulfill an economical niche within the community’s ecosystem: it is the quintessential library bookstore that must exist to ensure a well-read populace, as Archibald MacLeish might say.

It might not be in Scranton’s interest to remain capitalist, nor might it be in the library’s best interest to run a bookstore in the mall. Small businesses dry up as the citizens routinely prefer the convenience and assortments of larger stores. However, when large corporations have such a history of mistreating and abandoning you as they do in Scranton, perhaps it is only right that your city government steps in to shoulder the economic burden, just as the Library Express is doing now in Scranton. While the laborers who worked and striked for the good of the people of Scranton years ago have passed, their electric spirit will live on.

Works Cited

Class Content

Carrión, Jorge. Bookshops: A Reader’s History, translated by Peter Bush. Biblioasis, n.d..

Davis, Joshua Clark. From Head Shops to Whole Foods: The Rise and Fall of Activist Entrepreneurs. New York City, Columbia University Press, n.d..

Macleish, Archibald. “A Free Man’s Books”. Mount Vernon, The Peter Pauper Press, n.d..

Media

“Eyewitness to History: Steamtown Mall Opens.” YouTube, YouTube, 4 Oct. 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaKz7Eoche8. Accessed 8 Oct. 2023.

Jones, Stanley. Silkman House, Scranton. 26 April 1936, Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, PA,35-SCRAN,1-2, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Silkman_House,_Scranton.jpg. Accessed 8 Oct. 2023.

Mebane, R. Ramsey. Scranton Public Library, Albright Memorial Building, Scranton, Pa.. Boston Public Library Tichnors collection, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scranton_Public_Library,Albright_Memorial_Building,_Scranton,_Pa(63515).jpg. Accessed 8 Oct 2023.

The Times Tribune. “Invitations to the Opening.” Newspapers by Ancestry, https://www.newspapers.com/article/75815117/the-times-tribune/. Accessed 8 Oct. 2023.

VisualDimension292. “The Marketplace At Steamtown, Scranton, PA.” Reddit, 26 July 2022, https://www.reddit.com/r/deadmalls/comments/w8x3d3/the_marketplace_at_steamtown_scranton_pa/. Accessed 8 Oct. 2023.

weluvpa, NYRangers 2008, SteelCityRising, et al. “3 Business’s closed in Downtown Scranton and soon to be 4 (Wilkes-Barre: to rent, condo).” City-Data.com, 5 January 2008, https://www.city-data.com/forum/northeastern-pennsylvania/226476-3-businesss-closed-downtown-scranton-soon.html. Accessed 8 Oct. 2023.

Research

Domitrovic, Brian. “The Origin of the Rust Belt – Part 1.” Forbes, 9 Oct 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/briandomitrovic/2022/10/09/the-origin-of-the-rust-belt–part-1/?sh=5552712d104f. Accessed 8 Oct 2023.

ExplorePAhistory.com. “Terence V. Powderley Historical Marker.” https://explorepahistory.com/hmarker.php?markerId=1-A-3BE. Accessed 8 Oct 2023.

Falchek, David. “Mall at Steamtown looks to recreate image.” The Times-Tribune, 24 June 2020, https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/news/mall-at-steamtown-looks-to-recreate-image/article_42af6213-fc05-5506-ad23-d9b293710416.html. Accessed 8 Oct 2023.

Lackawanna County Library System. https://lclshome.org/. Accessed 8 Oct 2023.

Lackawanna Historical Society. “The Silkman Houses and the Silkmans”. The Lackawanna Historical Society Bulletin, 5(5), May-June 1971.

LaChiusa, Chuck. “Lackawanna Steel Company and Buffalo and Susquehanna Iron Company”. History of Buffalo, https://buffaloah.com/h/lacksteel/index.html. Accessed 8 2023.

Lange, Stacy. “Labor Day’s rich history in Scranton.” WNEP16, 6 September 2021, https://www.wnep.com/article/news/local/lackawanna-county/labor-days-rich-history-in-scranton-courthouse-square/523-19c35c1b-5368-4831-92ed-29f7a26ad0e4. Accessed 8 Oct 2023.

Lockwood, Jim. “Scranton Public Library opens book on strengths, weaknesses to plan improvements.” The Times-Tribune, 19 January 2021, https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/news/scranton-public-library-opens-book-on-strengths-weaknesses-to-plan-improvements/article_296d2968-f818-548a-bd5a-0ee5f422338b.html. Accessed 8 Oct 2023.

Lockwood, Jim. “Scranton Public Library takes community pulse.” The Times-Tribune, 6 July 2020, https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/news/scranton-public-library-surveys-community-on-next-chapter/article_df861692-bcb6-57be-9483-d6e5d0bb16f2.html. Accessed 8 Oct 2023.

Malls and Retail Wiki. “The Marketplace at Steamtown”, Fandom, https://malls.fandom.com/wiki/The_Marketplace_at_Steamtown. Accessed 8 Oct 2023.

Palumno, Andy. “Welcome to The Marketplace At Steamtown.” WNEP16, 31 May 2016, https://www.city-data.com/forum/northeastern-pennsylvania/226476-3-businesss-closed-downtown-scranton-soon.html.

Pennsylvania Labor History Society. “Timeline of Labor History in Pennsylvania.” https://palaborhistorysociety.org/timeline-of-labor-history-in-pennsylvania/. Accessed 8 Oct 2023.

PowerLibrary. “Scranton Public Library – History of the Scranton Public Library.” https://digitalarchives.powerlibrary.org/papd/islandora/object/papd%3Apscrl-hspl. Accessed 8 Oct 2023.

The Times Tribune. “Library Ownership of Church Site Official.” Newspapers by Ancestry, https://www.newspapers.com/image/639879435/?clipping_id=77917182&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjYzOTg3OTQzNSwiaWF0IjoxNjk2Nzk1NDkwLCJleHAiOjE2OTY4ODE4OTB9.SnomedkhUTiaeFgwu9BsG3cPaUiZTudTp4H1k76AnlU. Accessed 8 Oct 2023.

The Times Tribune. “Silkman House Branch Library Opens Tonight.” Newspapers by Ancestry, https://www.newspapers.com/article/77980305/the-times-tribune/. Accessed 8 Oct 2023.

Historics by Comics Metropolis

In the thirteen minutes we had before the parking meter ran out, my group and I hastily walked up and down the blocks of S 3rd Street surrounding Comics Metropolis in Lewisburg, PA. It was windy and cold, so we only surveyed the area for a few minutes before rushing back to the car. We didn’t even have time to step foot in the bookstore. When we first spotted Comics Metropolis, it was not at all what we had anticipated our bookstore looking like. The building itself was white, clad with a porch off to the side and blue shutters accenting every window. To me, this comic book store looked more like a house than anything. I had imagined this store to be tall and sleek with a modern storefront, similar to something you’d find in the city.

Comics Metropolis

Looking at the areas surrounding Comics Metropolis, this exterior made sense. Comics Metropolis is a family owned and operated business, bookended by Law of Attorney Graham Showalter as well as Santander Bank, both in buildings that could have once been homes. Most of the buildings on this street are painted pastel or light with a different color shutter, chimneys, rows of windows facing the street, et cetera. This aids to the Victorian image Lewisburg wanted to have before today, since they are now taking on the image of a Collegetown. Shown below is a street view of the Law of Attorney next door.

An interesting thing I happened to notice about the neighborhood surrounding Comics Metropolis were the amount of government-affiliated buildings and resources. There is a courthouse, a post office, two banks and an ATM, and Lewisburg’s Trust & Safe Deposit Company, all in addition to the real estate Attorney of Law. Not only this, but within two blocks, there are 3 churches: Beaver Memorial United Methodist, First Baptist Church, and Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church. This area of Lewisburg seems to be more historic and focused on landmarks that leave behind something meaningful.

Corner Stone of Lewisburg Opera House

For example, there is a corner stone from the Lewisburg Opera House, which was built in 1869, and burnt to the ground December 27, 1908. The idea of physical movement and change seems relevant to a point Tim Cresswell makes in his book, Place: A Short Introduction: “… imagine not just all the physical movement, nor even all the often invisible communications, but also and especially all the social relations, all the links between people” (68-69). There was a time where people visited that Opera House, that also visited one of the churches such as Beaver Memorial which was built in 1890, and there are links between those people and those physical locations in which those people interacted. Lewisburg wanted its current patrons and visitors to know there was an Opera House there and now today it is something I would not have known had I not gone to visit Comics Metropolis. This too is something Cresswell makes a point out of, permanence of place (57).

The culture within Lewisburg has a lot to do with history, but with literature as well. First Baptist Church had boxes out front advertising take a book leave a book, one for adults and one for kids. Walking by, I was very curious to see what was left behind and discovered more books within the box for kids than in the one for adults. Additionally, there is something called PoetryPath that links all of the churches together.

PoetryPath by Bucknell University

It’s a project done by the Stadler Center at Bucknell University, where people visiting the historical town or university can listen to poetry read by its author. There are ten spots and each one showcases a poem for its “thematic resonance with a culturally significant Lewisburg locale” (Poetry Path, Bucknell.edu). In participating in this, people are both welcoming poetry and history into their contemporary lives. Relating back to Cresswell once again, he speaks on Massey’s three interconnected ways of connecting, highlighting specifically on the second one, to show how authentically places and their identities are rooted in history (72-73).

After simply surveying and analyzing the area surrounding Comics Metropolis, it is clear to me now that it emphasizes Cresswell’s definition for sense of place: the cultural, subjective, and emotional attachment people possess (7). Though places constantly undergo change, like the Opera House once did, it only makes the location so much more meaningful.

Images

Yeager, Kaitlynn. Comics Metropolis. Digital file, 8 Feb. 2019.

Yeager, Kaitlynn. Corner Stone of Lewisburg Opera House. Digital file, 8 Feb. 2019.

Yeager, Kaitlynn. Poetry Path. Digital file, 8 Feb. 2019.

Websites

“Comics Metropolis LLC.” Comic Book Store in Lewisburg, comicsmetropolis.business.site/?fbclid=IwAR2EujnCwMVVjOa7n8xySfTxZ4J7f22hDo1xhwDSQBIhEPNMzdJPADxbIek.

“Poetry Path | Stadler Center for Poetry & Literary Arts.” Bucknell University, www.bucknell.edu/PoetryPath.

Texts

Cresswell, Tim. Place: a Short Introduction. Blackwell Pub., 2009.

BAM!: Businesses Come and Go, Bookstores Stay and Fight

Established in 1978, the Susquehanna Valley Mall, located in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, offers over 50 stores and services to areas within a 45-mile radius. Located on along the side of the North Susquehanna Trail, and across from a Walmart Supercenter, the mall is in a prime spot for business. The neighborhood thrums with nearly 5,500 Selinsgrove residents, which also includes roughly 2,266 Susquehanna University undergraduate students and any parents or relatives that may visit throughout the year. With the additional bonus of a highway location, other possible neighborhoods included Sunbury, Lewisburg, and as far as Harrisburg.

If you walk around the mall today, you’d probably note the dim lighting, sales that offer between 45-80% off, and empty store lots. You might even wish someone would put the poor place out of its misery. However, like a beacon of sunlight, nestled on the far-left side of the mall, I stood before a vibrant, enthusiastic Books-A-Million. 

Above: a map of Selinsgrove’s main attractions.  The mall is located behind several restaurants and is across from a Community Aid and Walmart Supercenter. Selinsgrove itself is located ten minutes south of the area. 

Even with the advantages of all these locations, I still found myself in an almost empty mall, in front of a BAM! that only had two customers inside: two middle-aged looking men, one with a receding hairline and the other that looked lost. However, after living in Selinsgrove part-time for the past three years, I wasn’t surprised. According to the Population Demographics for Selinsgrove Borough, Pennsylvania in 2019, 2018, the Selinsgrove population consisted of mainly white residence of 50 years or older and college students (18-25).

This map is of the Susquehanna Valley Mall’s directory, which provides the layout for all of the stores inside located in the mall. Books-A-Million, lot A12, is highlighted in yellow.

Despite Miller’s views on bookstores being more convenient and accessible in malls (90), BAM!and many of the other stores continued to lack costumers. An occasional speed walker would pass by without even a glance at the deals or clearance signs. I thought of Cresswell’s fundamentals aspects of “place,” (Defining Place 7). The mall was the perfect location for a bookstore. In fact, BAM! seemed to be the only store that thrived as the culture continued to change. With the display of romance and politics by the windows, BAM! seemed to keep up with the holidays and cultural shifts. 

The locale felt out of the way compared to the close-knit houses and red-brick sidewalks of Selinsgrove. Surrounded by food chains and retail, the social atmosphere held strong possibilities of success. So why is the mall so vacant?

I can’t help but wonder about how the culture is affect by the constant flow and change of college students, how the sense of place may fluctuate. According to Cresswell, a sense of place refers to the “emotional attachment” we have to a place and the sense of pride and culture that comes with it (7-8). Could the mall, BAM!, be affected by new people who aren’t used to the connective quilt of Selinsgrove? Even as time goes on the BAM! seems to be the last colorful leg the mall has to stand on.

The welcoming atmosphere of Books-A-Million at the mall.


With multiple locally owned and operated bookstores throughout the area, BAM! has survived since being placed in the mall in 2011. Book lovers continue to browse through the vast array of neatly organized novels, magazines, and comic books. BAM! isn’t just the place for people who like to read. The use of popular cultural icons like Harry Potter products (strategically place by the window), along with YA romance novels and stuffed animals linked to Valentine’s Day, brings a sense of belonging and it’s own culture to a rather diminishing building. 

Despite the lackluster of the mall, Books-A-Million continues to keep up with popular cultural trends for young adults, the exact target range for college students, and popular genres for middle-age families. (The main genre looked to be fiction. However, even some of those shelves were bare.)

What’s the future for the mall and BAM! in Selinsgrove? According to the Daily Item, a Women’s Health Care Center is rumored to take the former Sears building. As Books-A-Million began to fade behind me, and more stores crumble, I left wondering if this was the last time I’d be able to call this building a mall. 

                                                 What’s Next?

 

 

Sources:

 

Images

Books-A-Million. 10 Feb. 2019, duckduckgo.com/?q=Books-A-Million! susquehanna valley mall&atb=v144-5c_&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images&iai=https://localcontent.zenfs.com/c754/c754be728a1372b1c1f0b70084499e78.jpg.

Cole, Starr. What’s Next? Digital File, 10 Feb. 2019.

 

Maps

Google Maps: Susquehanna Valley Mall & surrounding attractions.

Susquehanna Valley Mall Directory, https://www.mallscenters.com/malls/pennsylvania/susquehanna-valley-mall

 

Text

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

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


Websites

“Hours.” Susquehanna Valley Mall ::: Selinsgrove ::: PA, www.susquehannavalleymall.com/directory/.

 

“How Does Susquehanna University Rank Among America’s Best Colleges?” U.S. News & World Report, U.S. News & World Report, www.usnews.com/best-colleges/susquehanna-university-3369.

 

mmoore@dailyitem.com, Marcia Moore. “Fall Start for Health Center Conversion at Former Sears Building.” The Daily Item, 29 Aug. 2018, www.dailyitem.com/news/local_news/fall-start-for-health-center-conversion-at-former-sears-building/article_ddaddc41-bfca-5b40-aba9-1c7f788a6f79.html.

 

“Selinsgrove, PA.” Data USA, datausa.io/profile/geo/selinsgrove-pa/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2019.

 

Suburbanstats.org. “Current Selinsgrove Borough, Pennsylvania Population, Demographics and Stats in 2019, 2018.” SuburbanStats.org, suburbanstats.org/population/pennsylvania/how-many-people-live-in-selinsgrove-borough.

 

“Sunbury.” Lawton, OK Crime Rates and Statistics – NeighborhoodScout, NeighborhoodScout, www.neighborhoodscout.com/pa/sunbury/demographics.

Fortress of Books

Like you wouldn’t judge a book by its cover you shouldn’t judge John K King books by its outward appearance. Otherwise you’ll never realize that the four story industrial building with a glove painted on its side is a haven for bibliophiles. Formerly a factory, the bookstore welcomes its visitor in through its Lafayette blvd entrance. Immediately as you walk in, free books line the right and left side of the bookstore. Signs litter the walls asking patrons to visit the bookstore before perusing through the free books. Once you’ve made it past the stairs leading up to the door to the inside of the store, the first thing you will see is the store directory. Pages detail the categories, making life a little bit easier for the customer.

 

The first floor contains mainly the standard topics you would find in any bookstore or library. There is of course a classic section for your Shakespeare needs, a sports section so you can read about your favorite athletes. A section on Michigan history and a large art collection. Every turn you take brings you to a different category a different world you can adventure through until you’re ready for something else, possibly something on a different floor.

 

The second floor is a terrific mixture of topics. On the second floor, the slightly obscure taste of John K King seeps through. Surrounded by topics that lean more towards a more practical side, there is a section dedicated to the occult. Aside from the shelves dedicated to the occult, most of the books on the second floor are educational or informative in nature.

 

As you make your way up to the third floor the categories change yet again. The third floor is mainly books that you might pick up for entertainment purposes. Mysteries, fiction, auto business are some of the many options on the third floor.

 

Finally after making our way up to the highest floor, you notice the personalities behind John K King bookstores. Here on the top floor, the categories get unique. Fashion, Catholicism, LGBT, Russia are just a few of the many topics that would can go through on the fourth floor.

 

Each floor has books all around the walls along with the aisles of shelves that cover the majority of the space on each floor. Depending on the floor, there are a couple of display section in between aisles, visually separating one side of the room from the other. With a bathroom only the second floor, John K Kings actually contains enough books to fill a large industrial building with four floors.

 

booksWalking through the entire bookstore for the first time can be daunting. There are books lining the wall, shelves that seem like they might burst at any given moment, saying that the bookstore is chaotic is an understatement. But behind this chaotic appearance is a well thought out plan that makes life easier for the bookstore’s customers.

 

The chaotic nature behind many libraries/bookstores, personal or public is examine in Walter Benjamin’s Unpacking My Library. Benjamin examines the “dialectical tension between poles of disorder and order”(60). For a collector the fine line between order and disorder is a constant. Though King’s bookstore is well labeled the books in each section are random. King doesn’t collect books that are the same edition by the same author instead he’s collecting topics. Topics that appeal to him as a collector.

Categories go from common to obscure. The higher you get the more unique the categories become. But even walking through the categories that are typical for bookstores, titles are still unique to King’s bookstore. You can’t walk in to the bookstore and expect to find exactly what you’re looking for. You need a few hours to find something that you didn’t know you wanted or needed.

 

a neat surprise on the wall
a neat surprise on the wall

This is what separates John K King bookstore from other rare and used bookstores.

 

There is a surprise at every corner. From a funny poster to a pile of books that aren’t categorized, John K King is a surprise. Because of the high book count, every trip will result in a surprise.

 

Benjamin also talks about the acquisition of the items in his collection. Not all items are carefully chosen. Some items are chosen because of in unexplainable draw to the item. If we view John K King Rare and Used books as John King’s collection we read the bookstore differently. Instead of searching for a common thread between one book and another, we can look at each item as a separate entity. Suddenly we lose the desire to find a common link instead we can look at the books as extensions of John King.

 

However even if we look at each floor like it’s an extension of King, there is no question that King had to decided where to place his categories. If we examine why the obscure items are placed on the fourth floor instead of the first, we might begin to understand kings reasoning. Customers are likely to go through the levels from bottom to top. They would go through the titles on the first floor before going to the second and so on. Placing the typical categories on the first floor allows King and the rest of the bookstore staff to ease the customers into the King bookstore experience.

 

Stepping into the chaotic bookstore might a first for the customer so easing them into the more obscure topics seems reasonable. As they move up the floors they get further away from the staff and the reference desk. King strategically has phones placed throughout the bookstore. Starting on the second floor going all the way to the fourth, each floor has a phone to call the reference desk if the customer has any questions.

 

Overall walking through john K King books is an adventure. Going in and out of aisles, up and down stairs every moment is filled with opportunities to discover new books. With the endless supply of books and quiet corners, its no surprise that John K King bookstores get visitors from all over the country. The space that is the bookstore is unique enough for people to travel from around the world just so they can experience John K King bookstore.

 

Sources

Text:Benjamin, Walter. Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt. Trans. Harry Zohn. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968. Print.

Videos: th77046. “Tony’s Visit to John King Used & Rare Books in Detroit Part One”.Online Video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 17 Apr 2008. Web. 16 Mar 2016.

th77046. “Tony’s Visit to John King Used & Rare Books in Detroit Part 2”.Online Video clip. Youtube. Youtube, 18 Apr 2008. Web. 16 Mar 2016.

Images: John K King Instagram

Web Resources: thinglink.com

A Treasure Hunt Through Square Books

The area around people influences the way that people look at things.  The owners of Square Books in Oxford, MS, the Howorth’s, seem to keep the area of their store in mind when setting it up, since one of the first bookshelves you see next to “Just-In Hardcovers” is “Mississippi Literature”.  Bookstores tend to represent the area around the store in the front part of the store.  Where Square Books has, “Mississippi Literature”, a Books-A-Million in central Pennsylvania has books about guns, and a store in northern New Jersey has Weird New Jersey next to a section on local authors.  It took a bit of team effort and one not so helpful phone call to the main store, to get a general layout of the three floors of Square Books.

Along with that, Square Books, like many other bookstores, show off their new arrival books, just inside the entrance on tables in the front of the store as well as by the checkout area, where customers are more likely to see them.

While constructing the floor plan for Square Books, we noticed that some areas and placements do not make much logical sense.  But, what does not make sense to me, might make sense to the owners, whom actually chose the layout of the store.  As Benjamin mentions in “Unpacking My Library”, “The phenomenon of collecting loses its meaning as it loses its personal owner” (Benjamin 67).  As I noted earlier, “Just-In Hardcovers” and “Mississippi Literature” are in the front of the store, but beyond that, things get a little weird (for me anyway).  On the left, next to the cash-wrap (registers), is “Mississippi Mysteries”, which I suppose goes along with the front set up, but I do not know that I have ever seen “Mysteries” and “Crime Novels” be near the front of the store or at least on the main floor.  Then there is “Business” in the back, up against the far wall, along with a table of posters and stationary, with “New Hardcovers” and “New Mystery”.  “Mystery” and “Business” seem to be the least sought-after books, in my experience with bookstores.  But what doesn’t seem to make sense at first, might actually make more sense, when I considered the placement of the stairs.

People are naturally very curious, so when we see stairs and realize there is more to the store, we have to explore it.  Square Books reels in their customers with “Just-In Hardcovers”, people like new things and on the wall display next to that is “Mississippi Literature”, which is interesting, especially to tourists and first-time customers.  Immediately after that are the stairs that go up to the second floor.  So, by my observation, people won’t see the “Mystery” section until they come back down the stairs, which are right across the way, almost like an afterthought, making it purposefully ignored the first time around, as those are not usually the sections that people will spend a lot of time looking through.

Going up along the stairs are stationary and journals, which line the walls. “Philosophy”, “Sexuality”, and “Religion” are on the second floor of Square Books, which is more like a hallway, since the first floor has high ceilings, and sounds a bit cramped, spatially, but actually overlooks the first floor.  These three things are often put together in most bookstores and are seen as a higher brow of literature, but I know I have a tendency to look through these types of sections just to see how many authors I recognize and to look more intelligent for looking at things that people hardly ever read for fun.

This brings us to the third floor of Square Books, which is where things got a little confusing.  While we pieced together this floor, we noticed a bit of disconnection between the subjects.  Where having “Music” and “Poetry” next to each other, we did not understand having “African American Literature”, “Nature” and “Science” right next to them.  This is where I saw that flow of the store break up a bit, because if I was looking at the “Nature” section, I would not think that “African American Literature” would be next to that and “Music”.  They have a large display of “History” books across from that area, but “Southern Studies” is all the way on the other side of the third floor.  So, I was curious as to why “Southern Studies” was not set up more as a subsection of “History” in the way that they have “Biographies” and “Literary Nonfiction” next to each other in the café.

In looking over the different genres and where the owners placed them in the store, I’m reminded of something Clifford said in “On Collecting Art and Culture”. Clifford states, “To see ethnography as a form of culture collecting highlights the ways that diverse experiences and facts are selected, gathered, detached from their original temporal occasions, and given enduring value in a new arrangement” (Clifford 231).  I’d like to think, based off this concept, that whomever did the layout of Square Books, simply applies different emotions and meanings to these sections than I do. Just basing this layout on pictures and videos of the store, I don’t really know what style/subgenre of books they have in each section aside from the general labels each section is given.  Like for “African American Literature”, I don’t really know what kind of books they put in this genre.  Is it fiction, nonfiction, more historically based? Is it about African Americans or by African American authors?  It is a bit ambiguous with its current placement in the store and in its contents, as are many of the other sections.

In this middle section of the third floor, is the café where as I said before has “Literary Nonfiction” and “Biographies” on one side and has a small shelf of “Young Adult” on the other with a section labeled “On Writing” against the partition.  I wondered about the significance of this placement, particularly the “Young Adult” section, which might just be the younger generations inclination toward coffee type beverages, but it seemed a bit in the middle of nowhere to me.

The setup of the Square Books’ main store bases itself off the idea of the “top shelf”, but in this case, it is more like, “top floor”.  I say this because, it is not until you’ve gotten to the third floor and through the café when you get to the “Fiction” section which is usually a go-to place for people walking into a bookstore.  It also seems odd that Faulkner would be all the way in the back corner in the same area.  I would think that would be something that they would display more openly as a way to maybe congratulate people on making to the third floor.

One explanation of this is it being like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  The customer has no choice, but to walk through almost the entire store before they get to the “Fiction” section.  They also have to walk through the café, which is another way for the store to make money, since the smell of coffee is so enticing.  This is also the section of the store that people usually find the “top-shelf” books.  So in a sense, Square Books is like a map to find the buried treasure, you have to make it through the rest of the obstacles to find the “gold”.

 

Sources

Written Sources:

Benjamin, Walter. “Unpacking My Library.” Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt. Trans. Harry Zohn. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 59-67. Print.

Clifford, James. “On Collecting Art and Culture.” N.p.: n.p., n.d. 215-51. Print

Video Sources:

“SQUARE BOOKS | OXFORD, MS.” YouTube. YouTube, 3 May 2015. Web. 19 Mar. 2016.

Picture Sources:

Basbanes, Nicholas A. “Down South.” Fine Books Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Mar. 2016. <https://www.finebooksmagazine.com/issue/201004/mississippi-1.phtml>.

Peter. “Inside Square Books [PIC].” Hot Topics in Oxford Mississippi RSS. N.p., 23 Apr. 2010. Web. 19 Mar. 2016. <http://www.oxfordmississippi.com/inside-square-books-pic/>.
“Square Books.” Square Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2016. <http://gallivant.com/shop/square-books/>.
“Stock Photo – The Famous Square Books Is an Independent Retail Bookstore on the Square in Oxford Mississippi.” Alamy. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Mar. 2016. <http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-the-famous-square-books-is-an-independent-retail-bookstore-on-the-24127160.html>.

99 Problems But A Rare Book Ain’t One

Whenever I get my hands on an old book, the first thing I do, sometimes without even realizing, is bury my nose into its pages. Everyone who’s come across that book before I did left something behind. Sometimes it’s a picture they used as a bookmark and forgot about and sometimes it’s just their scent. I can’t help but wonder who flipped through the pages before I did. Used books especially are more than the stories that are contained within them. Used books are artifacts that wear a coat of accretions from those who held it before me. Supposedly with over a million titles in the 901 West Lafayette location, I don’t know if John K. King Rare and Used Books houses more books or fragments of memories.

A Detroit native, King was always enamored with bookstores and antiques. Like most teenagers, King hung out downtown, loitering around his favorite establishments. Probably unlike most teenagers, King was drawn to bookstores. Fascinated by both the books and the characters in these bookstores and encouraged by his high school guidance counselor, Elsie Freitag, King naturally decided to become a rare and used book dealer.

Michigan Theater B
Exterior of Michigan Theater location

Though King started his business in 1965, the first location of John K. King wasn’t established until 1971 in Dearborn, Michigan. King then moved his bookstore to the Michigan Theater Building in downtown Detroit when the Dearborn store shut down. However King quickly outgrew his
storefront in the building and resolved to renting office spaces upstairs in the building,sending customers back and forth with keys in hand to view the special collections he kept tucked away in the office rooms.

Exterior of current location

 

Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately in the long run) it wasn’t long before an increase in rent forced King to search for a new location. Luckily King found a location merely a 15-minute walk away, nestled between the borders of downtown Detroit and the West Side industrial area of Detroit. However King’s problems only seemed to get worse with the purchase of this space.

 

The West Lafayette building bounced from corporation to corporations before housing John K King bookstore. The history of the building is just as fascinating as King’s journey to the factory. The building was first built in 1905 for Ste. Claire Manufacturing Company. When the business went bankrupt the space sat vacant before another corporation came in. The same thing happened three more times before King found the space in the classifieds. (Corktown History)

 

When King bought the glove factory, it was abandoned. The sprinkler system, the pipes were all, in Kings words, “busted”. Surrounded by a parking lot and Florists’ Transworld Delivery (FTD) corporate offices, downtown Detroit wasn’t an ideal space for a new small business. As a small businessman, King had to go through layers of bureaucratic loopholes. In Detroit large corporations like General Motors or Karmanos receive benefits and support from the city. Small businesses however were left to find their way in the dark. Recently in an interview with John K. King, King explained his frustrations about the obstacles they had to cross to get the bookstore where it is today. “They [the city officials] don’t realize: We have a lot employees, most of them are Detroiters, we pay taxes, we pay all the outrageous stupid junk fees”(Metrotimes). King mentions in the same interview that cities like San Francisco are on the side of small business because it’s made of mostly small businesses. However in Detroit, small businesses have to “go through bullshit with the city”.

Dealing with “bullshit” from the city wasn’t the only setback. Two years after King established his first bookstore, Detroit faced several internal problems including violent riots, population shifts, and economic turmoil. People moved out of the cities and into the suburbs, away from “problem” areas.

 

Still King’s business continued to grow. 99 problems aside, King’s customers weren’t one. I poured through several articles and interviews about the bookstore but I couldn’t find any information on King’s customer base.

Who doesn’t want to visit the largest bookstore in Michigan?

Still on the hunt for answers, I called John K. King bookstores and was able to get through to King himself. Getting right to the point, he said that his client based hasn’t changed in years. King is a collector of rare books and items and so are his customers. By the 1990’s, Detroit underwent major change. Downtown is now home to predominantly young professionals and waterfront property.

With the recent influx of “the techies, the hipsters” moving in, some customers just show up to the bookstore, wondering what’s hidden within the walls of the glove factory. But for the most part King’s customers come in with a good understanding with what lies waiting in the abandoned factory. King’s collection is rare enough to be listed as one of the best-used bookstores in the word by Business Insider. His customers travel from across the globe for the items housed in 901 West Lafayette.

 

Example label

With the rise of the Internet the bookstore faced another issue. Why go into a bookstore if you can easily buy something online from Barnes and Nobles? More importantly how do you catalogue over a million books so people know if what they’re looking forward is even in the store? Quite frankly, you don’t. Or that is the route John King took. Though King began to catalogue some titles, most remain catalogued. Referring to his bookstore as a dinosaur in the computer age, King explains that they were “here before Borders, during Borders, and they’ll be here after Borders” (MetroTimes).

 

So how is it possible that a bookstore that’s been through hell and back is still standing?

With a self-diagnosed inbred treasure-hunting gene, King looks for gems in estate sales and libraries. In the 33 years John K King bookstore has been in the 901 West Lafayette location, time stood still. People came in to find a particular book that they knew John King would have. John King established a bookstore but he also established a community of used book/antique lovers. Frances Steloff, the owner of Gotham Book Mart, ran her bookstore with the mentality that she only wants to handle the books she loves and nothing else(Rogers, 77). King takes the same approach. He handles the items he loves. Starting his collection back in the 60’s, King now has items like the first edition Book of Mormon, first edition Federalist papers, along with materials owned by people like Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain. (CBS).

King’s bookstore is a special place in the sense that it’s free from the feeling of being simply about facts and figures. Tim Cresswall talks about the feeling of place in an essay, he says, “To think of an area of the world as a rich and complicated interplay of people and the environment—as a place—is to free us from thinking of it as facts and figures”. When King moved into 901 West Lafayette, he surely wasn’t thinking about the economic benefits of moving into an abandoned building with only one neighboring establishment. Unaware of the history of the building, King moved in with the goal of filling all four floors with his own collections of books and antiques from history.

 

I’m not exactly sure how John K. King Rare and Used Bookstore survived for so long. I’m not a business or finance major so I certainly can’t say if it was a good decision financially. But the bookstore is still standing and it seems strong. Granted it is not the type of bookstore you might find current bestsellers but maybe a first edition of Twain’s Adventure of Tom Sawyer. The 901 West Lafayette location housed King’s bookstores for decades now, and I don’t know how much downtown Detroit will change in the next few decades but I do see John K. King Used and Rare books still at home at 901 West Lafayette.

 

Sources:

Websites:

Metrotimes: <http://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/john-king-of-john-k-king-used-and-rare-books/Content?oid=2143899>

CBS: < http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2014/09/22/a-50-year-staple-of-detroit-john-k-king-books/>

Corktown History: < http://corktownhistory.blogspot.com/2014/08/john-k-king-books.html>

Images:

“Michigan’s Largest bookstore” <https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/88/f8/dd/88f8dde5807b60276fccacc156447d25.jpg>

Exterior of Theater Building: <https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Michigan_Theatre_Building.JPG>

Label: John K. King bookstore Facebook page

Texts:

Rogers, W.G. “Wise Men Fish Here”. New York. Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. Print

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

Timetoast:

http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/john-k-king

Other:

King, John K. Telephone Conversation. Feb 22 2016.

 

A Look at Square Books: Modern Oxford

 

 

Square Books is a bookstore located in the heart of the south, Oxford, Mississippi. The store opened in the September of 1979, founded by both Richard and Lisa Howorth, as a privately owned bookstore. Oxford is the town that houses the University of Mississippi, a school that has produced many a great writer, including the likes of John Grisham, William Faulkner, and John Faulkner. It comes with no surprise that a town with such great academic history would also house an amazing bookstore that specializes in literary fantasy, works of Southern authors, and books packed with information about the South.

A simple map of the Oxford area, just giving an outline of the size of the town and an easy way to view stores in the area, from Google Maps

From the outside of Square Books, you can see a clear old school traditional bookstore look with the building itself. The building has a distinct smooth brick red color with gray decals towards the top of the building. From the front I was able to see a large glass window spanning the front of the first floor of the two story building, peeking in at the books that are on display to the public. As I used streetview to turn the corner of the street, there is a staircase marked going up to the second floor of the store and the balcony that branches directly off of it for customers to sit outside and enjoy the weather and read a book that they just bought or for groups to meet and discuss or just hang out.

Front shot of the Square Books Building courtesy of Google Maps Street View

Shot from the side of the same building courtesy of Google Maps Street View

The most notable feature of Oxford is undoubtedly Ole Miss. The University of Mississippi is a public university specializing in research with a student body of over 20,000 and an 81% acceptance rate. The facilities of the school take up a large chunk of the cityscape but also add greatly to the amount of people that reside in the town with almost the same population as the school. Oxford has been called one of the six best college towns by USA Today and the county that is resides in, Lafayette County, typically has the lowest unemployment rate per quarter in the state. And while technically the University of Mississippi doesn’t actually reside within the town, instead opting to call the surrounding area “University”, it very much fuels the kind of stores and market of the city. I have personal experience living in a college town, as I reside in Newark, DE, home of the University of Delaware and the Fightin’ Blue Hens so I understand how city culture and the stores around it can almost revolve around the kinds of students there.

The Law Building of Ole Miss, courtesy of law.olemiss.edu

The Law Building of Ole Miss courtesy of their website

While Newark has a heavily asian focused cuisine due to the high amount of transfer students from the East that we have, Oxford seems to have alot more local style creole food and cheap chain restaurants to cater to the residents of the area and the students who are still struggling to make a living there, paying for school. Stores like Little Caesar’s, Starbucks, McDonalds, Taco Bell and the like are focused around the major roads and the school itself while the town center where all of the residents and the bookstore hole themselves up have more local cuisine. This really manifests itself with the stores Boure, Soulshine Pizza Factory, and Rib Cage. All of these stores have a very southern focus, with Boure being a casual creole restaurant, Soulshine Pizza being a store that specializes in serving both pizza and po’ boys (an old cajun tradition that puts meat and condiments on a French baguette that typically has a Louisiana styled hot sauce on it; I would recommend them, catfish po’ boys with melted butter on them are absolutely amazing) and Rib Cage, a shop serving up barbecue, a classic southern staple.

Boure, Creole Restaurant

Soulshine Pizza Factory, Pizzas and Po’ Boys

Rib Cage, Traditional Southern BBQ

Other things of note in the town are the fact that there are over 80 churches of various faiths and denominations spanning the area around the city and the schools of the Lafayette School district residing inside of the city limits that have some of the highest test scores of the entire state, and the county courthouse sitting only across the street. For entertainment outside of the bookstore and watching the Ole Miss Rebels play, there is The Lyric Oxford performing arts theater only two blocks from the bookstore and several strip malls just off 314 to the east.

A Triangle of a Square.

The thing about Square Books in Oxford, Mississippi, with its population of almost 22,000 people, is that there are three stores; Square Books, Off Square Books, and Square Books, Jr..

“Wouldn’t that make it “Triangle Books”?” You ask.

Oxford circle square triangle

Well, no.  The locations of main store and its two smaller branches are just off the main square in Oxford, which also has a circle that goes around Lafayette County Courthouse at the center of the square…there are many shapes.  If you stare at the map for too long it’s almost like being back in geometry class.

 

Me being from New Jersey, I won’t pretend to be an expert on the South, seeing as how most of my knowledge of the South comes from movies like Forest Gump and The Blind Side, as well as shows like Hart of Dixie and Friday Night Lights, and books like Their Eyes Were Watching God.  What I do know about is books, bookstores, and college towns and I’ve always wanted to venture down South and after researching the Oxford area I think I know where I’m going first.

Oxford is a hub for just about anything you can think of when it comes to the amazing history and culture of the South.  In the nearby vicinity, there are at least four separate place to enjoy Southern foods.  And what is most likely due to the University of Mississippi, or “Ole Miss” as most people call it, only being a little over a mile from the square, there are at least three pizza places and four coffee shops as well as many other typical college town businesses.

In the video you can see the main Square Books store at 22 seconds in, Square Books, Jr. at 42 seconds, and Off Square Books at 2:02 which is the building with the diamond shapes on the front.

 

On the map, the three blue tags represent the three locations of Square Books, the main store, Off-Square Books, and Square Books, Jr., the gold coffee cups are the coffee shops in the area, the little gold cows are the restaurants serving Southern cuisine, the gold pizza slices are the pizza places, the gold fork and knife are other various restaurants, which includes two Japanese restaurants, the blue crosses are the different churches in the area, the gold music notes are music shops and venues, and the gold books are other bookstores in the area.

 

Culture and business go hand in hand.  Laura J. Miller states in her book, Reluctant Capitalists, “The business of books presents one of the best cases for seeing the importance of joining together an economic and cultural analysis” (Miller 6).  This melding of economics and culture is prevalent in area surrounding the three Square Books stores.  The area of Oxford is teaming with historical significance with its connection to the American Civil War, renowned authors like William Faulkner, and its connection to music as well.

Although, in this booming college town, there is what most think of as the great enemy of independent bookstores, which is the chain store.  Even closer to the Ole Miss, is a Barnes & Noble which is walking distance from the campus.  Much of the appeal of large chain bookstores is that they are usually cheaper than independent stores and sometimes more convenient.  Miller writes, “In addition to managing a growing number of college bookstores, establishing trade bookstores in the Northeast, and operating the flagship Barnes & Noble in Manhattan, the company ventured into a number of other book-related businesses. These included publishing, textbook wholesaling, the distribution of books to supermarkets, and with the 1979 acquisition of a firm called Marboro, the mail-order book business as well” (Miller 47).  Barnes & Noble and other big chain bookstores have a tendency to put independent bookstores out of business mostly because of their immense resources in getting things cheaper and making then more accessible for customers, (another bookstore in the area, Baptist Books, closed), but that does not seem to be the case with Square Books, whose business has only grown from one store to three separate stores.

The space surrounding the stores are full of the culture which tends to develop around colleges.  That is, a variety in cuisine (local as well as international), music (Blues music seems to be very big in the area), and churches representing many different sects of the christian faith.  Square Books taps into this culture and does many readings and presentations, as well as, Off Square Books’ radio show, Thacker Mountain Radio, and Square Books, Jr. bringing the younger generation into the realm of books.

The college town aesthetic, which surrounds Square Books, makes coffee shops, pizza places, Japanese restaurants, and good Southern cooking thrive.  With the thriving food businesses and the rich history that Oxford, Mississippi holds, there is no doubt foot traffic for the bookstores through college students coming over for readings and tourists interested in the Civil War, William Faulkner, or simply going to Ajax Diner for some good Southern food.

 

Sources

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

The Square At Oxford Mississippi. Dir. Justin Whitaker. YouTube. YouTube, 15 Aug. 2013. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.

Maps/screen-cap taken from Google Maps

John K. King Used & Rare Books: Isolated in the Big City

john k king exterior sketch

I’ve never thought of Detroit as an environment for trendy hipsters to browse quirky bookstores, so I was surprised to discover that Detroit is actually home to what Business Insider calls the “#2 bookstore in the world.” John K. King Used and Rare Books is huge; it holds over a million books in its four stories. The store resides in an old glove factory at 901 West Lafayette Boulevard at the edge of downtown Detroit.

What I find particularly striking about the store is that the image of a glove is still visible on the building’s exterior, and it looks more like an old factory than a trendy bookstore. On the inside, however, the image of an old factory goes right out the window when you take a look at the stacks of books crammed in every corner.

john k king exterior

The store stands isolated and imposing on a street corner, beckoning only the most hardcore readers to enter. The chipped paint and dark windows don’t exactly seem welcoming, but if downtown Detroit residents or visitors to the area are anything like me, the promise of books is enough to lure them into the store.

There’s also the fact that the store’s uniqueness is intriguing. Tim Cresswell writes about the search for “an authentic sense of place” in neighborhoods, houses, and stores because people want to “live differently from the mass of people” (61). If people are tired of seeing the same design and layout in every chain bookstore they visit, they can’t deny that John K. King appears authentic and different.

Downtown Detroit is primarily a business district, though approximately 4,284 people call it home. The majority of the residents are African American, and most of the rest are Caucasian. This makes the downtown area a bit more diverse than Detroit itself, which is 82.16 percent African American.

meta-chart

The area is most popular with young people in their 20s and 30s, single (as in not married), with incomes on the lower end of the scale.

age breakdown

marital status breakdownhousehold income breakdown

 

 

 

 

 

While the bookstore itself may not be bordered by many shops and restaurants, there are plenty of attractions within walking distance. Closest to the store are office and apartment buildings, but downtown Detroit has much more to offer visitors, like museums, historical sites, parks, and restaurants. Much of the area seems to be geared more toward tourists and visitors than residents, although the businesses would certainly appeal to the young people living there.

On the map below, the orange diamonds denote restaurants, the blue pins are historical buildings, the green pins are parks, the pink pins are museums, and the yellow circles are houses of worship.

As you can see, the red star representing John K. King Used and Rare Books looks a little lonely there on the map, but I would imagine that having the bookstore a bit removed from the regular hustle and bustle of the city creates a quieter, more relaxing book browsing experience.

While the bookstore is obviously located in a city, perhaps one of the reasons for separating it from most of the other businesses in the area comes from the success of suburban bookstores that began after World War II. As Laura Miller explains in Reluctant Capitalists, suburban stores may not have the same foot traffic as major city stores, but customers are often willing to drive to larger bookstores in less busy areas (91). John K. King offers free parking outside the store for just this purpose. You may not accidentally stumble upon John K. King while shopping in the city, but perhaps you’ll be willing to make a trip specifically to check it out.

Aside from the location, the transformation from glove factory to bookstore is unique; it reminds me of Tim Cresswell’s ideas about space and place. John K. King, the owner and founder of the store, transformed 901 West Lafayette Boulevard from an ordinary “space” where a factory once stood to a personal “place” with all the elements of culture we tend to attach to bookstores, seeming to give the building more value and a better sense of place. I can’t help but think that John K. King must have found something symbolic in this transformation process, that he enjoyed taking this unassuming building on the outskirts of downtown Detroit and adding his own style to create a successful bookstore, as if to prove that the culture of information and intellect surrounding bookstores can make even the most basic location or building interesting.

On the other hand, maybe John K. King simply thought it would be cool to establish a bookstore in an old factory. If that’s the case, can you blame him? I certainly can’t.

 

 

Texts:

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

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

Websites:

http://www.areavibes.com/

http://www.businessinsider.com/

http://www.kingbooksdetroit.com/

http://visitdetroit.com/

Images/Graphs:

http://www.kingbooksdetroit.com/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/446278644297053705/

http://www.areavibes.com/detroit-mi/downtown/demographics/

Maps:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zJYQNuqjUYu4.k9bQA5qK_6EI&usp=sharing

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3276879,-83.0571367,3a,82.2y,139h,90t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1stBTsZOvFTedFwucUZyejAQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656