A Bookstore Fit For A King

Exterior of John King Books

It’s hard to miss the four-story high, industrial building as you walk down West Lafayette Boulevard in Detroit, Michigan. Located just off the M-10 Lodge Expressway, the bookstore is nestled between Downtown Detroit, an area with museums, historical sites, and restaurants, and the West Side Industrial, a business district with apartments and condos lining the riverfront. Decorated with an enormous image of a glove, an image reminiscent of the original purpose of the building, both your curiosity and feet pull you through the front door of John K. King Used & Rare Books.

As soon as you walk in, you’ll notice boxes of free books. Continuing up the stairs and into the distinct sections, you’ll notice that books cover every wall, every floor space of the store. The first floor consists mostly of books on Michigan, art, and classics, a selection of genres that will immediately draw in any kind of customer.  John King Books isn’t simply a bookstore.  It’s a destination for both tourists and residents of Michigan with a unique sense of “place” that can be found nowhere else here on the outskirts of Downtown Detroit.

John King creates his bookstore’s “authentic sense of place” through the eclectic mix of books in his store.  Here is where his visitors will find exactly what they didn’t know they needed – there is something for everyone.  When we think “independent bookstore” we think “smallness…, being locally based, and limited in geographic scope,” visualizing a small bookstore with a collection that’s impressive in diversity but not size (Miller 165).

We don’t picture John K. King Used & Rare Books.

With four floors filled to the brim with books and a spare building for its rare books collection, John King Books is anything but small.  A landmark in its own right, the bookstore gets a myriad of visitors.  Both proud residents of Michigan and curious tourists walk in ready to find their next literary treasure.

John K. King Used & Rare Books isn’t located in an area bustling with businesses; it’s fairly isolated on a street corner.  Although the store’s website, and Google Maps, claims it’s in Downtown Detroit, some sources place the store in West Side Industrial, such as real estate websites Zillow and Trulia, as well as this map created by compiling various sources.  Regardless of which neighborhood John King Books officially belongs to, the store acts as a bridge between the two neighborhoods.  The West Side Industrial area immediately surrounding the store appears empty and devoid of culture, but John King Books is within walking distance of the museums, theaters, and art galleries in Downtown Detroit.

You may choose to visit the downtown area to experience some culture, but once you get closer to the border between the two neighborhoods, John King Books is the only culture you’re going to get.

John King Used & Rare Books doesn’t have the best relationship with the neighborhood in which it resides.  King originally chose the location on West Lafayette because the building was large enough to hold his enormous book collection, but he didn’t seem to take the actual neighborhood into account.  The books are what matter to King; the neighborhood is simply an afterthought.  Most bookstores strive to be involved with the neighborhood surrounding their bookstore, but King takes a different approach.  While he places those free books in the store’s lobby for people who can’t afford books, he otherwise doesn’t involve himself with the community surrounding the bookstore (May 3, 2016 interview).

Aside from the specific neighborhood, King doesn’t even have an appreciation for Detroit itself. According to King, the city does not treat small business owners well, and it makes King’s work difficult. He told the Detroit Metro Times, “If I were going to start a bookstore in a major city, Detroit would not be on my list of cities to open—and not because of people, but because of the city.”  Although Detroit may not be the most ideal location for a bookstore, King’s passion for bookselling keeps him at West Lafayette Boulevard.

Despite King’s lack of involvement in the community, John K. King Used & Rare Books has grown into an icon of the West Side Industrial area, with its claims to fame as the second best bookstore in the world in 2014 according to Business Insider, and one of the world’s coolest bookstores in 2014 and 2015 according to CNN.  John King Books isn’t the first bookstore to serve as a staple for the surrounding community, though.

Before West Side Industrial there was Corktown, and before John King there was Ethel Claes.

Ethel Claes (right) and her mother Hilja
Ethel Claes (right) and her mother Hilja

Back in the 1950’s, neighboring residential area Corktown encompassed the present-day West Side Industrial district.  It was during this time period that Detroit city planners decided to convert part of Corktown into a light industrial zone.  A woman named Ethel Claes stepped up to rally the residents of Corktown and fight for their homes.  Claes ran a bookstore called The B.C. Claes Book Shop out of her Victorian home with the help of her mother, Hilja.  While the shop had previously been known as a popular stop for Midwest rare book collectors, it was now known among the Corktown community as a “rallying point” for the fight against city planners.

As can be seen today, the Corktown residents failed to save the 75 acres of residences that were bulldozed and replaced with West Side Industrial.  Claes’s leadership and spirit can still be credited with preventing the loss of even more land and preserving what now makes up Corktown today.  John King Books has replaced The B.C. Claes Book Shop as Corktown/West Side Industrial’s local literary gathering place.  While it may not be the center of a significant fight against the city, the store’s identity as a spiritual descendant of Ethel Claes can be easily seen as it brings people together from both within West Side Industrial and outside the area’s boundaries.

Since it is located in a light industrial zone, there aren’t really any residents for John King Books to fight for, unless you go down to the Riverfront apartments.  West Side Industrial today is vastly different from Claes’s Corktown of fifty years ago.  It can then be assumed that a vast majority of visitors to the store come from outside to West Side Industrial, and they’re coming to the area with John King Books as their destination, not the neighborhood.  “Space” is acknowledged as being innately present in all areas of reality, but it is up to us as humans to assign significance and establish “place” (Cresswell 11).  John King Books has carved out its own little “place” in the insignificant “space” of West Side Industrial thanks to the patrons it draws to its doors.

The buildings that would become home to John King Books as they were in 1966
The buildings that would become home to John King Books as they were in 1966

Now let’s take a look at the history of the store itself.  King’s business hasn’t always operated out of the dilapidated factory it’s known for today, and his bookstore actually led a pretty mobile life in the beginning.  Initially established in Dearborn, Michigan (1971), John K. King Used & Rare Books only operated for a few years before packing up and shipping out to the Michigan Theatre Building (1977) in Downtown Detroit.  Unfortunately, this new location didn’t last long, either, as the store’s growing book collection demanded more room.  When the Advance Glove factory building at 901 West Lafayette came up for sale in 1983, King didn’t hesitate to purchase the four-story complex for his expanding bookstore venture.  Now in 2016, John K. King Used & Rare Books is still conducting business from the same glove factory, and King himself now has various awards in honor of his bookstore.

John K. King SignKnowing the history of John King Books is insightful into King’s business, but that sense of “place” is what truly helps you understand its impact on the bookstore.  “Place, in whatever guise, is like space and time, a social construct” (Cresswell 57).  When you take the opportunity to look at John King Books’s place within the industrial district of Detroit as a social construct, you begin to see the outside influences that define it.  While the physical location of the building certainly makes a difference, the social workings of the surrounding area largely affect how we perceive John King’s bookstore.  When you juxtapose what is essentially the only major independent bookstore in the area outside Downtown Detroit, you get an idea of how vital this store is to the distribution of literature in the area.  This outlet of books is really the only resource available to local residents looking to satiate their literary curiosities.

The ownership of John King Used & Rare Books has been consistent over the many years it has been in business.  Today, John King represents the store behind him.  He is passionate about the collection of books in his store.  “Every passion borders on the chaotic, but the collector’s passion borders on the chaos of memories” (Benjamin 60). King’s store certainly appears chaotic, and this chaos can also be seen in King’s personality.  In interviews, King isn’t forthcoming about specific dates in the store’s history; he doesn’t seem to keep track of when the store started and when it moved.

So what does King remember?

John K. King
John K. King

King recalls his childhood, which he spent exploring used bookstores in Detroit. He was attracted to the stuff inside the bookstores: both the books and the “various characters” he met (Detroit Metro Times).  From a young age, King had a passion for used bookstores, so it seems only natural that he decided to open his own store as an adult.

King also recalls the estates where he acquired the stock for his store.  When he gets a call from a lawyer or an heir offering up an estate to be sold, he buys what he thinks he can sell, transferring ownership of the specific collection.  “Ownership is the most intimate relationship that one can have to objects” and the collector lives in those objects (Benjamin 67).  When King acquires books for his store, he establishes this intimate relationship.  The store’s shelves hold King’s personal collection, the books he deems worthy of stocking, and his presence is alive in the store.

John K. King Used & Rare Books is a reflection of King’s tastes and tendencies. It’s a little disorganized and scattered, but full of valuable books.  And, with the store named after him, it’s no surprise to discover that King is an active member of the store’s own little community.  He works in the store consistently, spending his days buying books, arguing with people, and discussing literature (May 3, 2016 interview).  He is a recognizable figure in the store as the owner of the large collection that fill the store’s four floors.

This independent bookstore boasts an incredible amount of variety within that ever expansive stock.  While you won’t have any difficulties finding your classics or historical accounts, you would also be hard-pressed to find a subject not covered somewhere within this plethora of books.  All of these different genres coming together to compose an overall organized layout is the pure epitome of order and disorder.  The nature of the collector forms a “dialectical tension between the poles of disorder and order” (Benjamin 60).  To an outside spectator, the arrangement of books in John King Books may seem like nothing more than chaos, but in the right eyes, his bookstore maintains perfect order.

As you observe the contents contained on each floor of John K. King Used & Rare Books, you’ll notice a trend as you ascend the building.  Though the material covered in the books of the ground floor is conventional, an obscurity of genre is gradually explored as you go up each level.  By the time you actually reach the top floor of King’s bookstore, you’re confronted with literature pertaining to odd topics, like alternative medicine and the Kennedy family.  It’s hard to see the logic and reasoning behind this array of literature, but John King does have a method to the madness.  Even if you are unable to understand the order in the store’s disorder, the bookstore is still fulfilling its greater purpose.  By hosting this wide selection of literary genres, King is not only providing his customers with variety, but connecting them to worlds they would have never imagined.

While some people think “literature” is only restricted to the classics like Charles Dickens or Walt Whitman, John King and his bookstore suggest that the term “literature” can be applied to all writing.  The store’s layout only places emphasis on certain genres from a business point of view by placing the more popular genres like Michigan history and juvenile literature on the first floor.  The rare book room housed in the second building also places more monetary value on the physical books but not necessarily on the words they contain.  Fiction and non-fiction are mixed together on each one of the store’s four floors, and the store shows no shame in selling everything from True Crime to Civil War to Classics to Self Help books.

The website for the store’s rare book catalog claims: We are particularly interested in books concerning Military History, Michigan and Detroit, the Auto Industry, Signed books, First Editions, Stationary[,] Steam Engineering, Bible Reference, Chess and Checkers, Slight-of-Hand Magic, Incunabula and Early Printings, etc.”  The store seeks to offer customers a myriad of genres, while still helping them find something they can’t find anywhere else.  There are little to no restrictions on genre or form of writing for the literature sold at John K. King Rare & Used Books.

John King Books presents itself as a place where people can get lost in literature.  Customers are encouraged to lose themselves in the stacks, browsing every shadowy corner with minimal employee interference.  The top three floors each have a telephone that customers can use to call an employee for assistance, a necessary fixture since the store doesn’t have any employees wandering among the stacks hoping to help.  John King Used & Rare Books is a store where you can stay for an extended period of time; it’s not a store where you can easily just pop in and out with your book.  The store is an inviting oasis, a safe haven for those who love books.

Since John King Books doesn’t use computers to inventory the stock, customers can’t request for a bookseller to simply look up a title or author digitally.  Without this digital crutch that so many bookstores have become accustomed to, customers and booksellers alike have no choice but to wander through the stacks and search for their request themselves.  The store’s large and diverse collection offers you the chance to find not just the perfect book for your needs, but also yourself.

john king books exteriorYou might fear that the changing techniques used by booksellers to rack up profits will drive John King Used & Rare Books out of business, but the owner isn’t worried. “We were here before Borders, we were here during Borders, and we’re here after Borders,” King told the Detroit Metro Times.  The store has proven itself capable of surviving the shifting technology of bookstores, and it if can outlast a successful chain store and the shifting political climate of Detroit, then the store doesn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.

One strength the bookstore has that allows it to survive is its international presence.  King is proud of the fact that he ships books all over the world, which illustrates the store’s desire to be more than a community bookstore.  John K. King Used & Rare Books doesn’t strive to provide literature to locals; it strives to provide literature to readers, wherever they may be located.

As King says, “we’re not a community bookstore, we’re a destination bookstore” (May 3, 2016 interview).

 

Sources

Text

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

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
John K. King’s Used & Rare Books Website. Rarebooklink.com.

http://www.rarebooklink.com/cgi-bin/kingbooks/index.html

DeVito, Lee. “John K. King Used & Rare Books.” Metrotimes.com. 2014.

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

John K. King Used & Rare Books Official Website. Kingbooksdetroit.com.

http://www.kingbooksdetroit.com/

Szewczyk, Paul. “Corktown History.” Corktownhistory.blogspot.com. 2014.

http://corktownhistory.blogspot.com/2014/08/john-k-king-books.html

 

Media
“John K. King Used & Rare Books.” GoogleMaps. 2016.

<https://www.google.com/maps/place/John+K.+King+Used+%26+Rare+Books/@42.3276753,-83.0571661,3a,75y,148.83h,92.46t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s4sPzMkqbArS7Novd013pSA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D4sPzMkqbArS7Novd013pSA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D204.04396%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!4m2!3m1!1s0x883b2d3898055011:0x9cb2ad271d9156f2!6m1!1e1?hl=en>

“John K. King Used & Rare Books History.” TimeToast. 2016.

<http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/john-k-king-used-and-rare-books>

“John K. King Used & Rare Books.” ThingLink. 2016.

<http://www.thinglink.com>

“Literary Tourist: John K. King Used and Rare Books, Detroit.” YouTube.com. 2012.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AS0oUuFHuMY>

“W Lafayette Blvd” GoogleMaps. 2016.

<https://www.google.com/maps/@42.3276798,-83.0571556,0a,75y,140.27h,88.67t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s4sPzMkqbArS7Novd013pSA!2e0?source=apiv3>

Images
John K. King’s bookstore

http://media.afar.com/uploads/images/post_images/images/jGDWnvivwE/post_display_cropped_open-uri20130626-24184-6imw1o?1383817134

Ethel and Hilja Claes

http://corktownhistory.blogspot.com/2013/02/ethel-claes-and-west-side-industrial.html

Exterior of old glove factory

http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/cgi/i/image/image-idx?id=S-VMC-X-47335%5D47335

Michigan’s largest bookstore sign

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John K. King

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King’s bookstore skyward view

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Time Line: Advance Glove Manufacturing

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Time Line: Old Advance Glove Factory

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3918/14593048290_31ee12809f_o.jpg

Time Line: Dearborn, Michigan Sign

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Time Line: John K. King Used & Rare Bookstore

http://motorcitymuckraker.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/John-King-books_2489.jpg

 

John K. King Used and Rare Books: History Within The Page

John K. King’s Used and Rare Books had a very mobile history, but the greatest shifts took place in its literary stocks.

Everything in this world has a history behind it, and it’s through this recollection of the past that we gain an insight into the subject at hand. John K. King’s Used and Rare Books is no different, for the rich history behind this bookstore clearly demonstrates how it has come to be recognized as one of the greatest in the world. When considering everything that has transpired to define this establishment, the subsets of place and literature come to the forefront. Tim Cresswell, made famous for his studies surrounding human geography, published a piece of writing entitled “Place” that thoroughly set the standard for how such is to be understood in this modern age. “But place is also a way of seeing, knowing, and understanding the world.” (Cresswell 11) By observing how this bookstore, being the “place,” underwent its various shifts in location, we can hope to gain an idea of how to understand it within the context of this world. Though the history of John K. King Used and Rare Books is occupied with significant instances of physical transitioning, a far more noteworthy series of changes were occurring to the literature. An amassment of over one-million books doesn’t come about in a day, but it was the diligent work of John K. King himself that collected this surplus of literature over his many years in the business.

John K. King was a man devoted to literature, and it was this deep interest that spurred the creation of his now world famous bookstore.

To begin understanding John K. King Used and Rare Books, we first have to explore how this bookstore initially came into fruition. In some of the earliest accounts of John K. King, he was noted for having a deep passion for books and antiques. With the heavily influential support of his high school guidance counselor, King was inspired to transform his interest into a profession as he opened up his very first bookstore in Dearborn, Michigan (1965). Operating out of the location for six years, King made good use of this hub in his bookselling efforts, but the need for more space to accommodate his ever expanding collection of books pushed him to relocate.

In 1971, John K. King made the decision to transfer his bookstore from Dearborn to the Michigan Theatre Building, which had a very prominent position in the Downtown district of Detroit. For the beginning years after the move, this old theatre served King well with an upgraded capacity in comparison to his first location. However, the issue of finding enough room for his increasing stock of literature once again became a major concern. The Michigan Theatre happened to have a number of empty offices in its upper floors, and these spare rooms were a temporary fix for King’s dilemma. Renting out many of these sections in the upstairs of the building, he now had further storage for his growing collection. However, this solution soon proved more impractical than anything else. Accessing any of the books that were housed in these offices required quite a journey, and the amount of money it was costing King to continue renting them quickly added up. Having realized the need to further his growing business, John K. King finally decided to purchase a building of his very own.

The Advance Glove factory was purchased by King in 1983 and has served as the central location for John K. King Used and Rare Books ever since.

When 1983 rolled around, a famous establishment in the industrial section of Detroit found itself on the auction block. The building was none other than the Advance Glove factory, which had long been abandoned at 901 West Lafayette. Interestingly enough, this building had a considerable history of its own before settling in its current location. Advance Glove Manufacturing had experienced several relocations and one catastrophic fire before finding a base of operations in Downtown Detroit during the 1940’s. Even after that, the business had to change its location once again, for a project, entitled the John C. Lodge Expressway, threatened many of the establishments in the industrial district. Shifting a mere 600 feet, the Advance Glove factory moved to the same spot that it stands in to this very day. Although this building had a rich past of its own, it was its immense area that drew King in. The old factory boasted four spacious floors perfect for the amount of inventory he would later move in.

It didn’t take long for John K. King to fill out all of his newly acquired space, for shortly after its purchase, the Advance Glove factory housed thousands of books on every floor. King was a man always looking to collect more and more, so it should come as no surprise that he later underwent another expansion after purchasing even more property. Referred to as the Otis Elevator building, this office complex sat directly behind John K. King Used and Rare Books, making it an optimal piece of property for his needs. Acquisition of these offices provided King with the opportunity to appropriately divide his stock into rare and common pieces. Now, the upper floor of the Otis Elevator building serves as the primary location for all of the rare literature and material that King comes across in his business ventures. As for the rest of the building, it’s just more convenient space for none other than his consistent influx of used books.

The books that find their way into King’s store are not bound by condition or language.

The physical history of John K. King Used and Rare Books is essential in understanding its “place,” just as Tim Cresswell would agree. King’s bookstore has undergone many significant shifts in location, and all of these have had their own effect on how this outlet for used and rare books is perceived by the public. While this transition possessed a prominence of its own, there was an even greater evolution occurring as King continued to expand his library of books. As more and more literature poured into his possession, the possibility of finding something that would appeal to a particular consumer became ever more likely. This expanding variety of King’s bookstore immediately made me think of the excerpt, “Jewish Bookstores of the Old East.” It was mentioned how “Here in this shop you may get in Yiddish Shakespeare, Goethe, Schiller, Tolstoy, Gorki, Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Dante, Swineburne, Shelley, and various other great writers in all languages.” This plethora of excellent books with their multitude of translations is exactly the kind of material that finds its way into King’s shop, and subsequently the same type of literature that enriches his store with historical value.

A glimpse into the kinds of rare literature that can be found in John K. King Used and Rare Books.

In John K. King Used and Rare Books, the extent of his stock isn’t limited to traditional literature either. While the writing of famous authors is readily available for anyone interested, other unique pieces, like autographs, archives, and photographs can also be found among the shelves. Noteworthy examples of such include the automotive manuals of Dodge and Delorean, autographs of celebrities, and even original photographs of Mark Twain himself. Over the course of a lifetime, John K. King has amassed a collection of literature unseen by any other independent bookstore. Some of the most recent surveys even have the number of books in his inventory estimated at over 1 million, with no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

John K. King Used and Rare books is an extraordinary bookstore ripe with historical value. Its physical changes echo the progressive growth the establishment has undergone since its conception in 1965, but its literature holds the richness with which the store is imbued. Every book that navigates its way into John K. King’s possession has a history of its own that you could only begin to speculate on. Each page of a story is infused with value readily available for some curious reader to recognize. To think that an establishment that now hosts more than 1 million books began with a passionate reader operating out of Dearborn, Michigan is only a testament to just how much history lies behind John K. King Used and Rare books.

 

References

Texts

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

“Jewish Bookstores of the Old East.” The Exchange 1981, 1996: 17. Print.

Website Resources

http://www.kingbooksdetroit.com/about-us/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_K._King_Books

https://www.timetoast.com/

Images

www.kingbooksdetroit.com

www.afar.com

reddeverywhere.blogspot.com

www.metrotimes.com

John K. King Used & Rare Books: Preserving History & Place

When John King was a child, he enjoyed visiting used bookstores in Detroit and meeting the eclectic mix of people you’re guaranteed to find in a bookstore. In Sunwise Turn, Madge Jenison discusses this diversity of customers in bookstores, writing that “in a bookshop you drink democracy” (113). She writes with apparent fascination about the different types of people you can encounter in a bookstore—“all sorts, the great, and cold, young ex-convicts, shoplifters” (113) and it seems that John King shared this fascination. He was always intrigued by the bookstores he visited, and these stores seemed to become a part of his blood. In a way, it seemed inevitable that he would one day open his own used bookstore in Detroit.

In 1965, when King was a teenager, he found his way into the book business when he started trading books, and he opened a small shop downtown and briefly moved into a store in Dearborn, Michigan. In 1971, he opened a store in the Michigan Theatre Building in Detroit. Eventually, his collection of books outgrew the Theatre Building, so in 1983 he purchased the old Advance Glove Factory in Detroit where the store continues to thrive today.

This timeline shows the major events in the history of John K. King Used and Rare Books and the building in which it currently resides.

When King made the decision to move his store, he wasn’t concerned with the neighborhood. All he was looking for was a space big enough to fit his massive collection of books, which he found simply by searching in the classified ads. King didn’t seem to consider whether or not the residents of the area would be good customers, or whether his business would be able to thrive in a location somewhat isolated from the commercial area of downtown Detroit. He didn’t even bother to change the exterior of the building from an old factory to an inviting bookstore.

This all seems like a bad business decision to me, but clearly King did something right, because the store still stands. It seems like King had the attitude that his store would survive regardless of location or appearance because it sold old books, which he thought of as special products that would always be in demand. I think he would agree that he stumbled upon something special when he found this particular building.

A newspaper article featuring the caption “John King couldn’t picture how anyone could move his building”

Perhaps the most interesting bit of information about this building at the corner of Lafayette and Fifth is that it wasn’t always located there. When customers would tell King that his store had been moved from the corner of Lafayette and Fourth over to the corner of Fifth when it was still a factory, he had trouble believing them. He wasn’t from the area, so it probably would have seemed like the residents were just messing with the new kid on the block. I had troubling believing these customers too, when I first saw articles and stories about this so-called moving factory. Why would someone move a building? How would someone move a building?

The answer to my first question is the John C. Lodge Freeway. One of the first freeways to be built in Detroit, it encountered some obstacles, one of them being the large Advance Glove Factory that stood in its path. Construction began in 1947, and it destroyed thousands of homes and buildings throughout the city. But for some reason, the Advance Glove Factory wasn’t destroyed; instead, it was moved.

The answer to my second question leaves me skeptical, but according to the bookstore’s website, customers have provided photographic proof: the building was moved onto “log-like rollers made of Alabama gum wood” and rolled to the west (corktownhistory). Apparently the work in the factory didn’t even stop during the moving process; employees continued to go about their business as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

During the mid-1940s, Detroit dominated a number of industrial fields in the United States, including electric refrigeration, adding machines, stove manufacturing, and the most obvious one: automobiles. To transport all the products, Detroit began to construct the aforementioned freeway system, which not only destroyed public housing units, but also failed to offer residents relocation options. Though this was against the law, the city effectively created 17,000 refugees and a wide distrust for the government. As a result, many middle-class residents began to move to the suburbs, leaving those with lower incomes to remain in the distressed city (city-data).

However, Detroit began to recover during the 1960s, making efforts to improve education, housing, employment, and economic development. It was during this time that King entered the book business, his arrival coinciding with the city’s moves toward social progress. Detroit’s revival continued into the 1980s (city-data), when King finally found a long-term home at 901 West Lafayette Boulevard. King started his business at a time when Detroit was beginning to value culture and social progress again, driving people into bookstores at a higher rate than would have occurred in the previous few decades.

When King was a child, he says there were probably about 20 used bookstores in Detroit, all around the downtown area. Most of these stores have since disappeared, likely at the same time that the city was experiencing so much economic distress. It’s no secret that bookstores are becoming less popular now that ebooks and online shopping are all the rage, but King doesn’t seem worried about his store, for good reason. If the store can outlast Borders, why wouldn’t it be able to hold its own against Amazon?

To this day, King refuses to computerize his store. If a customer wants to find a particular book, a computer search cannot determine whether the book is in stock; the customer must wander the aisles. With four stories of books arranged on shelves with hand-written signs, it’s easy to get lost in the stacks, but the store undeniably seems alive and unique in comparison to the Barnes and Noble a few miles away.

Unlike your typical chain bookstore, John K. King Used and Rare Books hasn’t rushed to keep up with new trends in bookselling over the years. While the chains have added clean, organized, and familiar layouts, John K. King has remained a labyrinth where books fill every available nook and cranny. When I look at pictures of the store’s interior, it seems old-fashioned, and I can practically smell that distinct old-book scent through my computer screen. To me, John K. King Used and Rare Books looks like a time capsule that captures what bookstores used to be before the chains dominated the industry.

Of course, King’s refusal to turn to computerization in this modern age of bookselling seemed strange to me at first. After all, I’ve grown up with computers as the solution for practically everything. But the more I think about King’s store, the more I find his methods to be admirable. In the same way that the owners of the Advance Glove Factory didn’t want to see the building destroyed in favor of a new highway, King doesn’t want to see his old-fashioned bookstore change in favor of computerization.

To the owners of the bookstore and the factory, the building is not just a location for a business, it is a place that they have created in the neighborhood. As Time Cresswell writes, “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” (11). If the factory owners thought about the building as “facts and figures,” the factory would have been torn down to make way for the highway and moved to a new building. If John King thought about his business as “facts and figures,” he’d have computerized his store and imitated the layout of successful chain stores in order to maximize his profits. Instead of focusing on logical business decisions, these owners have embraced not only their locations in the neighborhood but the physical building itself. Cresswell writes about the concept of a sense of place, meaning “the subjective and emotional attachment people have to place” (7), and it’s obvious that the people behind this building are emotionally attached to their place. If the former and current owners of the building didn’t think their place was special or meaningful, they’d never go to all the trouble to preserve its history in the face of technological changes.

 

Photos

bookstore exterior: www.pinterest.com/pin/446278644297053705/

newspaper article: www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC55J62_mh-detroit-on-the-move

bookstore interiors: www.kingbooksdetroit.com/preview-of-our-store/

Websites

City Data: www.city-data.com/world-cities/Detroit-History.html

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

Deadline Detroit: deadlinedetroit.com/articles/11434/video_a_3-minute_chat_with_the_owner_of_john_k_king_s_books#.Vsz-xfkrLIV

John K. King Used and Rare Books website: www.kingbooksdetroit.com/

Metro Times: www.metrotimes.com/detroit/john-king-of-john-k-king-used-and-rare-books/Content?oid=2143899

OU News Bureau: www.ounewsbureau.com/?p=2251

Texts

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

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

Sambrano, Marilynn. “Plot Seldom Quickens in Used-Book Biz.” Crain’s Detroit Business 11.15 (1995): 12. ProQuest. Web. 23 Feb. 2016.

Timeline

www.timetoast.com/timelines/1224228