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

Factory + Library + Personality = John K. King Used & Rare Books

 

john king books exterior

With four floors stuffed to the brim with books, John K. King Used & Rare Books is a book lover’s paradise.  This store is said to have over literally a million books in stock, and that wouldn’t be surprising given the size of the store.  John King Books occupies an old glove factory building, and utilizes all of the four floors, with each one packed with shelves and aisles of books upon books upon books.

John King Books is a general used bookstore, selling genres that range from “Alternative Medicine” to “Sewing & Textiles” to “Literary Criticism” to the usual fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.  The rare books mentioned in the store’s full name are housed in a separate building from the main store, and is only opened to customers by appointment.  But this store is more than just books, it’s also about collections. The store also sells antiques, art, collectibles, and prints.  James Clifford writes in “On Collecting Art and Culture” that “identity is a kind of wealth (of objects, knowledge, memories, experience)” (218), and John King Books has gathered together a multitude of identities in the forms of their possessions, ready to be passed on to a new owner and a new identity.

This video provides a simple look at what the shelves of one floor of John King Books looks like.

Before you even enter the store proper, in the lobby there are carts and boxes of books that are absolutely free for the taking if you’re willing to dig through them.  The front counter is just inside the entrance, ready to answer questions and help customers as soon as they enter the store.  The first floor boasts some of the more popular genres, including juvenile literature, Civil War history, poetry, and the classics, as well as some music and art stock.

Customers must venture up the stairs and to the higher floors to get the full experience that is John K. King Used & Rare Books, however.  The third floor, in particular, is a synecdochic embodiment of the bookstore’s literary offerings.  It features both fiction and nonfiction, standard and unusual genres.  Like the second and fourth floors, the third floor is organized simply in a modular manner, like a library.

Hover over the graphic below to see red markers – hover over those for a sneak peek at that spot on the floor.

The stairs dump customers out into shelves of fiction from authors with last names B-Z, on the other side of which are hardcover mysteries.  Those searching for authors A-B must go a little further into the floor.  Fiction sections, highlighted purple, dominate this half of the floor, while the other half and the walls are occupied by non-fiction literature, highlighted green.  All of the floors feature a mix of fiction and non-fiction, but none of them are so clearly divided as the third floor.

John King chooses to place a majority of his fiction stock not on the first floor, not even on the second floor, but here on the third floor.  As probably one of the most sought-out genres by customers, placing the fiction books on the third floor guarantees at least a small journey through the world of this bookstore.  But its position right next to the stairwell means customers still won’t have to go far for their fiction fix.

On the other side of the floor, an almost equally as large section of nonfiction awaits perusal.  While the non-fiction on the second floor may indicate the STEM focus of today’s society (e.g. architecture, engineering, math, biology), the non-fiction genres here on the third floor appeal to hobbies, featuring gardening and sewing as well as automotive and nautical.  Here is also where patrons will find the exclusive biographies sections, another genre that appeals to a wide range of people, although biographies may also be sprinkled throughout other sections like history and film.

Something interesting to see is the location of the science fiction and fantasy genres, definitely one of the most popular genres.  Like the general fiction, they’re placed up on the third floor, but their shelves are located over in the non-fiction side of the floor.  Hardcover sci-fi and fantasy is smack dab in the middle of it between gardening and automotive!  It’s a rather nonsensical placement and promotes the sense of organized chaos found in a store of John King Books’s size.

It’s a little amusing to see this tiny sliver of space reserved for westerns between the stairwell and the non-fiction paperbacks.  It’s a dying genre, but it’s still hanging on at John King Books.  To find westerns on the same floor as literary criticism and self-help and picture books testifies to the diversity at this bookstore, as well as our society.  Here you can find those books “on the pencil, the zipper, the toilet, the banana, the chair, the potato, the bowler hat,” or whatever else strikes your fancy (Brown 2).  As the culture of things has grown in the past decades, so has the quantity of literature on those things, and John King Books is happy to carry all of it.

John King-0786

Another defining characteristic of John King Books is the atmosphere created by the building and the shelving and other non-literary objects.  The sheer size of the space, exposed brick walls, fluorescent lighting, and old signage preserve the building’s history as a factory and create an industrial air that helps the store fit in at its West Side Industrial location.  The huge volume of inventory is reminiscent of a library, and the hodgepodge shelving and handmade section labels lend the space some personal charm.

Independent bookstores are usually characterized by “smallness (even though the independents count among their members some of the largest bookstores in the country), being locally based, and limited in geographic scope” and John King Books mostly fits the bill, although it falls into that parenthetical category (Miller 165).  The combination of factory, library, and personal touches creates a nostalgic mood that shows that even though it’s bigger than some chain booksellers, John K. King Used & Rare Books is a unique independent bookstore.

 

Sources

Images

Exterior of John King Books: http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/john-k-king-books-detroit-2?select=QAGkOgfboYcoClGWggSW4g

“No Smoking” sign: https://flic.kr/p/vo7k8n

ThinkLink Photos

Crate: http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/john-k-king-books-detroit-2?select=QltUMWeDRtzjcHUUJs69Ww

Customer: http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/john-k-king-books-detroit-2?select=9UoRUKz3sTdph2IXo6ZzJA

Down the aisle: http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/john-k-king-books-detroit-2?select=p1pO2SheDsnfmyVzA2gANQ

Phone: https://flic.kr/p/uHHo2g

Pile on the floor: http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/john-k-king-books-detroit-2?select=PapOFKz_A4nwwN17lHwrkQ

Self-help: https://flic.kr/p/9Zkpze

Stairwell: http://www.yelp.com/biz_photos/john-k-king-books-detroit-2?select=crqvS9Plq3yB8keCg8a4xw

Text

Brown, Bill. Critical Inquiry, Vol. 28, No. 1, Things. (Autumn, 2001)

Clifford, James. The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1988.

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

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

Connections Over Generations: John K. King Used & Rare Books

Before there were a million books, there were gloves.  Before there were gloves, there were hats.  Before there were hats, there were blouses.  Before John K. King Used & Rare Books took up residence in the four-story building located at 901 West Lafayette Avenue, the building was home to factories for various clothing manufacturing companies.  Advance Glove Company has left the only visible marks on the building, with a large glove painted on the exterior, a floor mat welcoming visitors inside the front door, and signs ordering workers “NO SMOKING” hanging above bookcases.

Advance Glove acquired the Lafeyette building in the 1940s after its previous occupant, the Crown Hat Manufacturing Company went bankrupt in May 1930 like many other businesses in the Great Depression.  Continuing into the building’s past, in 1908 Crown Hat took over from Ste. Claire Manufacturing Company, a maker of women’s blouses, the company for which the building was originally built in 1905.

While the future home of John K. King Used & Rare Books was still in the hands of Advance Glove, construction of the M-10 freeway began in January 1947.  Thousands of houses and businesses met their fate as they were destroyed in order to make room for the new road.  The Advance Glove factory, however, managed to escape such a fate.  The building was jacked up and rolled on logs of Alabama gum wood from the corner of Lafayette and Fourth Street to the corner of Lafayette and Fifth Street and there it has sat ever since.  The two pictures below show the before and after of the blocks where the M-10 was constructed and divided the downtown and light industrial areas.

Lafayette Boulevard block before construction of M-10
Lafayette Avenue block in 1936 before construction of M-10
The same block in 1962 after the construction of the M-10 freeway
The same block in 1962 after the construction of the M-10 freeway

 

John K. King became a bookseller in 1965, establishing his first substantial store in Dearborn, Michigan in 1971.  King has expressed how Detroit “inspired” him to set up shop in the city that some see as in tragic decline.  “[T]his is where I started,” he said in an interview for CBS Detroit.  “This is where I learned the book business. This is where I went to the various old bookstores so I had a loyalty toward Detroit and this is why I’m still here.”

John K. King
John K. King

After his Dearborn store ended up closing, King moved into Downtown Detroit where he set up shop in the iconic Michigan Theatre Building.  While there King’s collection and stock grew exponentially.  At first he rented out more empty offices to store the new books and other historical articles.  But soon that was no longer a financially feasible option.  And so, King began looking for another property to claim for his precious bookstore.

The Advance Glove Manufacturing Company had gone bankrupt, and so vacated its Lafayette factory, in 1981.  The building with its large painted glove on one corner had stood empty for a couple years by the time it caught the attention of John K. King.  Its multiple stories would be perfect to house his expansive collection, and so in 1983 the property became King’s.  The John K. King Used & Rare Books store we know today opened on January 1, 1984.

But that wasn’t the end of expansion for John K. King.  As his collection still grew, he eventually purchased the building behind the old glove factory as well.  This slightly smaller structure had originally been built for the Otis Elevator Company in 1909 and then was home to an architecture firm before it ended up as part of King’s Detroit literary paradise.  Now the second building serves as office space and the home for the rare books collection that requires appointments for viewing.  He’s also opened up two other stores elsewhere in the Detroit metropolitan area: John King Books North in Ferndale, and Big Book Store near Wayne State University.

While John K. King Used & Rare Books is a defining icon of its district today, another bookstore played an important role in West Industrial Side’s history when the zone was still part of the neighboring Corktown.  In the 1950’s, Corktown encompassed the area now known as West Side Industrial but then Detroit city planners decided that part of the residential area would serve the city better as a light industrial zone.

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

A woman named Ethel Claes led the fight of Corktown residents to fight the rezoning and save their homes.  The bookstore she operated with her mother at their own home, The B.C. Claes Book Shop, served as a “rallying point” for the protesters in a similar fashion to how Lewis Michaux would open up his National Memorial African Bookstore as a hub for political activists of color like Malcom X in the midst of the Civil Rights Movement (Emblidge 1).  These bookstores exemplify the idea of being “indigenous organization[s] that foster communal solidarity” that’s been lost due to the rise of chain bookstores and the commercial competition they’ve forced upon independent bookstores (Miller 120).

As can be seen today, even though the residents of Corktown were able to reveal that the city had no hard evidence to show that Corktown was “blighted,” which served as the city council’s primary justification for rebuilding the area, Claes and Corktown lost their fight.  In the late 1950’s, seventy-five acres of land were bulldozed and recreated into what is now West Side Industrial.

The City of Detroit has recently taken interest in West Side Industrial again and been working on more development in the area.  Just before John K. King opened his massive bookstore in an old glove factory, construction was completed on two of the Riverfront Towers just a few blocks away along the bank of the Detroit River.  A decade later, the third Riverfront Tower was added, and the apartment and condominium complex was established as the left end of Detroit’s International Riverfront.  In 2007, the Detroit Riverfront Conservancy purchased a twenty-acre piece of land that was once home to a newspaper printing plant and had been closed since the 1970s and developed it into the sprawling West Riverfront Park, which opened in 2014.  The park is now being advertised as a venue for summer concert festivals to further the city’s attempt to “revitalize” the area.

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
John K. King Used & Rare Books today
John K. King Used & Rare Books today (the main store is in the background in both photos)

The two buildings that John K. King Rare & Used Books occupies, however, have not changed much on the outside in the past fifty years, as seen in the two photos above.  Different signage grace the buildings, part of a third level has been added to the second building, and some shades have been added to a few windows on the second building as well.  Besides these small details, though, the buildings on West Lafayette have been an anchor in West Side Industrial ever since they were constructed and/or moved there in the twentieth century.  This remarkable bookstore is connected to various pieces of history, both its own and that of its home neighborhood.  The colossal glove that preserves the memory of a factory and the vintage paint schemes and signage provide a piece of nostalgia in an area of Detroit that is receiving increasingly more attention as we enter into a brand new generation.

 

 

Sources

Links

2 Riverfront Towers sold to New Jersey investor. <http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20070723/SUB/707210319/-1/newsletter02>

A 50 Year Staple of Detroit: John K. King Used And Rare Books. <http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2014/09/22/a-50-year-staple-of-detroit-john-k-king-books/>

Corktown History: Ethel Claes and the West Side Industrial Project. <http://corktownhistory.blogspot.com/2013/02/ethel-claes-and-west-side-industrial.html>

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

GC55J62 – Detroit On The Move. <https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC55J62_mh-detroit-on-the-move>

John K. King Used & Rare Books. <http://www.kingbooksdetroit.com/>

West Riverfront Park. <http://www.detroitriverfront.org/riverfront/west-riverfront/west-riverfront-park>

West Riverfront Park launches new concert era in city. <http://www.detroitnews.com/story/entertainment/music/2015/06/02/west-riverfront-park-launches-new-concert-era-city/28392605/>

Photos

Ethel and Hilja Claes. <http://corktownhistory.blogspot.com/2013/02/ethel-claes-and-west-side-industrial.html>

John K. King. <http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5287/5222959902_8577a97c51_b.jpg>

John King Books buildings 1966 – street view. <http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/cgi/i/image/image-idx?id=S-VMC-X-47335%5D47335>

John King Books buildings present day – street view. Google Maps Street View.

Lafayette Avenue block 1936 – aerial view. <http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/cgi/i/image/image-idx?id=S-VMC-X-435%5D435>

Lafeyette Avenue block 1962 – aerial view. <http://dlxs.lib.wayne.edu/cgi/i/image/image-idx?id=S-VMC-X-201%5D201>

Images in timeline

John K. King Used & Rare Books – 1983 event. <http://www.rarebooklink.com/cgi-bin/kingbooks/index.html>

John K. King Used & Rare Books – 1984 event. <https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2725/4379524678_9ab25b56c9_o.jpg>

Michigan Theatre Building. <http://x.lnimg.com/photo/poster_1920/1c4a72d960a24f0387c7f2f349546bf5.jpg>

Relocation of Advance Glove factory. <http://corktownhistory.blogspot.com/2014/08/john-k-king-books.html>

Text

Emblidge, David. “Rallying Point: Lewis Michaux’s National Memorial African Bookstore.” Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 25 July 2008.

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

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.

 

Hidden in Plain Sight

Minutes from the USA/Canada border, downtown Detroit is central business district and a residential area in Detroit, Michigan. Following the collapse of the auto industry, Detroit’s economy took an enormous hit, forcing the city to declare the “largest municipal bankruptcy in US history”. Along with its economic issues, Detroit has faced an alarming decline in population. According to the US Census, Detroit’s population dropped from 951,270 to 713,777 in a mere thirteen years. Demographics in Detroit’s population were also drastically affected by the hit the auto industry took. In 2010 the US Census found that 82.7% of Detroit’s habitants were Black or African American, 10.6% were white and a mere 1.1% was Asian.

Recently, however, Detroit has seen an influx of white millennials who find the city more alluring than the suburbs they grew up in. Unlike other major cities like New York and San Francisco that have also undergone a change in demographics, Detroit’s cheap housing and incentive programs are fueling the shift in demographics. One thing that hasn’t changed: John K. King Used and Rare Books.

 

Exterior of John K. King Bookstore

Nestled between abandoned buildings and corporate offices is John K. King Used and Rare Books. Originally an old glove factory, John King bought the 901 West Lafayette building in 1983 to showcase his collection of books and artifacts. Isolated on the corner of Lafayette Blvd and 5th Street, the bookstore is relatively plain looking building with layers of paint peeling off of the walls. Without the several posters plastered onto the side of the wall that label this building as a bookstore, you could walk by this place and not even know what’s hiding within those four walls.

The surrounding area appears just as run down as the bookstore. The streets are littered with cracks that were poorly attempted to be fixed, the alleyway behind the bookstore looks like a place you might avoid not only during the night but the day too. Minutes from the bookstore there is a Greek-town and an Opera house. The area appears culturally dense, but nothing appears to be close to the bookstore itself.

 

So why this place and why so isolated?

 

33 years seems like a long time for a bookstore in Detroit to thrive but John K. King has withstood time. In his text titled “Reading a ‘A Global Sense of Place’”, Tim Cresswall quotes David Harvey saying, “place, in whatever guise, is like space and time, a social construct”. So following this observation “place” is something we construct. The qualities we give to downtown Detroit cant be given to this bookstore. Instead inside this bookstore we find qualities that we would never assign to Detroit. It’s quiet, it’s a not something you pass by as you walk, it’s a destination.

 

Historically bookshops were meeting places. For scholars, neighbors, intellectuals, just about anyone with a passion for words. John K. King serves as a meeting place for people in and out of Detroit. Its easy enough to get lost between the stacks and piles of books, and being isolated from the city’s bustling population, it serves as a haven.

 

King manages to create his own “authentic sense of place”(Cresswall, 61), the bookstore’s economic and social ups and downs are separate from Detroit’s which allows the bookstore to be self-sustaining. Perhaps that’s why this bookstore managed to last so many years in Detroit.

 

References

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

Google Maps

John K. King Used and Rare Books Website

 

 

Caught in the Middle: John K. King Used & Rare Books

When I think of Detroit, Michigan, I think of “Motor City,” I think of ghettoes full of crime, I think of a dying city.  I would never have guessed that a special place now on my bucket list is located in this seemingly broken city.  With four floors stocked with over a million books, John K. King Used & Rare Books has a larger collection than any chain superstore, but retains the independent bookseller quality of a “distinctive” world with its unique atmosphere (Miller 98).  John K. King Used & Rare Books is a shiny spot in a tarnished region, a hidden gem in Detroit’s unfortunate reputation.

Found in the West Side Industrial area, this remarkable bookstore is located just off the M-10 Lodge Expressway, which separates the old glove factory that houses the bookstore from the skyscrapers of downtown Detroit.  Just drive east from the bookstore under M-10 and you’re a mere half-mile away from central downtown Detroit, and then you can go just a little further to the iconic Renaissance Center.

West Side Industrial’s area is roughly rectangular in shape, with a staircase-like northern border as it travels from Bagley Avenue to Labrosse Street to Porter Street.  Rosa Parks Boulevard and M-10 Lodge Expressway serve as the western and eastern borders respectively.  West Side Industrial then runs from those boundaries down to the Detroit River.

West Side Industrial is a business district, with residences consisting of apartments and condominium towers lining the waterfront.  It is also home to Dean Savage Memorial Park, a small park of less than 3 acres of land, and the much larger 20-acre West Riverfront Park.  The latter is quite new compared to most of the neighborhood, having been constructed within the past few years.  It also just became a new concert venue for summertime shows in 2015, solidifying the riverfront as the more modern area of West Side Industrial.

bookstore assignment 1 race edubookstore assignment 1 ageAlmost 1500 people live in the 2.9 square miles of space that is West Side Industrial.  Basically all of them live in the Riverfront Apartments buildings.  A large majority of the population in West Side Industrial, 60.9% to be exact, is black.  24% are aged 22-29, and combining that with the fact that 28.1% hold a bachelor’s degree suggests that a good portion of West Side Industrial’s residents are recent college graduates. West Side Industrial’s proximity to downtown could explain this, as it would serve as an ideal place to live for commuting to jobs in the central downtown area.

John King Books’s neighbors are the Detroit Transportation Service Center of the Michigan Department of Transportation and a Greyhound bus station.  Like much of the other businesses that occupy West Side Industrial, including John King Books, MDOT and Greyhound inhabit blocky buildings reminiscent of warehouses.  Structure after structure blends into one another in a horizontal blur, the only vertical found in the waterfront towers.

Here on the edge of the realm of municipal departments, contractors, and condo towers stands John K. King Used & Rare Books.  Although it is placed with the other businesses exiled from downtown Detroit for being boring or old, John King Books gets a special spot stuck between two worlds – the modern and the nostalgic.

John K. King Used & Rare Books appears to have decided to embrace the nostalgic with its own charming twist.  A painting of a glove is still visible on one corner of the main warehouse, harkening back to the four-story building’s past as a factory for Advance Glove.  This quirk sets the structure apart from the other similar blocks nearby.

A unique feature of John K. King Used & Rare Books is that their inventory is not computerized except for the rare and valuable collections, and they have a limited presence online.  Traces of technology in general are few and far between inside the store – almost all the signs marking different sections and aisles, announcing specials, and directing patrons are handwritten.  Despite all this, though, the bookstore managed to catch the attention of book lovers from around the country and has become a “meeting place” for them to share the experiences of getting lost in the store’s four floors and finding hidden treasures (qtd. in Cresswell 69).  The adventures this bookstore creates are taken home just like the literary finds of the day, forever connecting those who have the chance to visit John K. King Used & Rare Books and solidifying its place on this bibliophile’s bucket list.

bookstore assignment 1 int

John K. King Used & Rare Books

Sources

Charts

Statistical Atlas, “Race and Ethnicity” chart. <http://statisticalatlas.com/neighborhood/Michigan/Detroit/West-Side-Industrial/Race-and-Ethnicity#figure/race-and-ethnicity>

Statistical Atlas, “Detailed Educational Attainment” chart. <http://statisticalatlas.com/neighborhood/Michigan/Detroit/West-Side-Industrial/Educational-Attainment#figure/detailed-educational-attainment>

Statistical Atlas, “Age Structure” chart. <http://statisticalatlas.com/neighborhood/Michigan/Detroit/West-Side-Industrial/Age-and-Sex#figure/age-structure>

Images

John K. King Used & Rare Books photo <http://www.kingbooksdetroit.com/preview-of-our-store/dimeodichik00zwywcjhmy9lwawno5>

Maps

Statistical Atlas, West Side Industrial map (reference). <http://statisticalatlas.com/neighborhood/Michigan/Detroit/West-Side-Industrial/Overview>

Google Maps: John K. King Used & Rare Books, Michigan Department of Transportation, West Side Industrial

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.

An Oasis of Literature

An industrial district residing on the outskirts of downtown Detroit may not seem like a productive location for a bookstore, but John K. King Used and Rare Books has proven otherwise, having operated out of the locale for more than thirty years. Initially established in Dearborn, MI, this bookstore was first moved into the Michigan Theatre and later found residence in an abandoned glove factory, where it still stands today. The nature of this industrial location certainly shines through in the building’s aesthetics, as the bookstore presents a sort of rustic and rundown appearance. However, do not let these outer showings fool you, for the contents within are as valuable as the name would entail. As an indicator of its quality stock, John K. King Used and Rare Books has even been recognized by CNN and named the second best bookstore in the world by Business Insider.

 

In the effort to truly define John K. King Used and Rare Books as its own place, I find it best to refer to the studies of Tim Cresswell. This scholar has devoted immense effort into defining what we consider “places,” and his reflection upon the nature of the term is one of the best ways to begin my approach. “Place, in whatever guise, is like space and time, a social construct.” (57) Cresswell’s observation of place demonstrates that the term is a product of human interpretation. Various considerations come into play when a “place” is defined, but the physical and cultural factors of the area tend to be the predominate determinants. We already understand the physicality of the bookstore within the context of a factory situated in the west industrial district of Detroit, but we have yet to observe the structural nature of the surrounding environment.

Relatively speaking, John K. King Used and Rare Books is a rather isolated facility. Being located outside of the main downtown area creates a significant divide in how much attention it can garner, but perhaps this position helps filter the clientele it receives. The included Google map exhibits most of the establishments contained within the general vicinity of the bookstore. Designated by the yellow star is John K. King Used and Rare Books itself. Diamonds represent culinary facilities, like eateries and breweries, while circles are used to show public services. These include the Detroit Public Safety Headquarters, Greyhound Bus Terminal, local Salvation Army, and even a news station designated WDIV. There are two churches within a few blocks of the bookstore, as shown by the cyan squares, and the Sports Hall of Fame, along with the Cobo Center, are signified by the blue squares in the lower east. The final location, which houses the riverfront apartment complexes, is shown as a magenta marker just south of John K. King Used and Rare Books. There really isn’t any better way to describe the local area other than varied and dispersed. Variety is definitely present among the surrounding establishments, but there is a definitive lack of congestion that you would see in the more city oriented areas of Detroit. While its positioning may not attract as much attention as it could, the isolation does create that quiet area that you could never even hope to achieve in the city.

The physical status of the John K. King Used and Rare Books is just one of the two main factors involved in this “social construct” we understand as “place.” In order to get the full picture, we must now examine the cultural influences surrounding the region.

Detroit racial composition
Demographic profile 2010[115] 1990[116] 1970[116] 1950[116] 1940[116] 1930[116] 1920[116] 1910[116]
White 10.6% 21.6% 55.5% 83.6% 90.7% 92.2% 95.8 98.7%
 —Non-Hispanic 7.8% 20.7% 54.0%[117] n/a 90.4% n/a n/a n/a
Black or African American 82.7% 75.7% 43.7% 16.2% 9.2% 7.7% 4.1% 1.2%
Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 6.8% 2.8% 1.8%[117] n/a 0.3% n/a n/a n/a
Asian 1.1% 0.8% 0.3% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% n/a

 

At the heart of culture resides the people that compose it, so it is always beneficial to understand the backgrounds behind them. From an ethnic perspective, the majority of current day residents are of African heritage, with the second most populous being Caucasians. There are also noteworthy percentages of Hispanics and Asians that live there as well, though their numbers are vastly smaller by comparison. If there is anything to take away from this table of statistics, it should be the diversity that currently exists among the populations of Detroit. It wasn’t always this way, as the beginning decades duly represent, but the populations have gradually spread out to establish a much better sense of multiculturalism than was initially present. Equally important as ethnicity in our understanding of Detroit’s culture is the economic condition of the area. Unfortunately, Detroit has undergone severe financial declines in the past decades. One of the most recent blows to the economy came with the collapse of the American auto industry a few years ago. These incidents over the years have placed the area of Detroit, and its many denizens, in a state of widespread poverty. Although these people are subjected to financial struggles, a provider of used books is just the kind of retailer that such a population can benefit from. It is in this way that John K. King Used and Rare Books establishes a niche in the market capable of satisfying customers of any financial level.

Alongside the people, art itself has served as an incredible influence in defining the culture of Detroit. Music is one of the forms that is deeply rooted in the city, with genres such as jazz, Motown, punk rock, techno, and hip-hop all finding solace within its walls. Some of the most famous figures in music have emerged from this city, and the impact of art doesn’t stop here. In addition to music, theater has also served as a focal point of the artistic community. Fisher Theatre specifically has been responsible for hosting a venue of shows, with the bulk of current productions being Broadway shows. For art forms such as music and theater to hold this much value explains why John K. King Used and Rare Books has been able to maintain its iconic status through the art of literature.

Tim Cresswell placed a great emphasis on the difference between “space” and “place” in his exploratory essays. “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.” For John K. King Used and Rare Books, its “place” is the cumulative result of its physical and cultural influences. The location and people behind this bookstore have defined it as the icon that it currently is. Without these invaluable factors, this bookstore would be nothing more than another “space” in the city of Detroit.

 

References

Textual Resources

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

“Detroit” Wikipedia. 31 January, 2016. Accessed February 4, 2016.

“Culture of Detroit” Wikipedia. 13 October, 2015. Accessed February 4, 2016.

Media Resources

Google Maps

John K. King Used and Rare Books Building

John K. King Used and Rare Books Sign

Further Information

John K. King Used and Rare Books Website