The Strand and Book Row: A History

History of the Strand on Dipity.

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

The original Book Row
The original Book Row

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nancy Bass and Fred Bass
Nancy Bass and Fred Bass

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

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

Sources:

Images:

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

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

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

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

Maps:

Google Maps: The Strand Bookstore

Text:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Timeline:

History of the Strand on Dipity

Video:

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

18 Miles of Books: Something for Everyone

The Strand Bookstore, with its unmistakable red awning, has its main location at 828 Broadway (& 12th Street) in New York City. Nestled in between the borders of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village and East Village (the territory which the store’s location favors) the Strand is home to “18 Miles of New, Used, and Rare” books, as well as to many New Yorkers. According to the 2010 Census, the East Village alone has approximately 24,527 housing units among which their population of roughly 43,755 people live, the majority of them aged from 25-34 years old, and that’s only a portion of the Strand’s potential customers. The Strand has had this location as its home since 1957, when Fred Bass, the son of the store’s original owner Ben, moved the store just around the corner from its original location on Fourth Avenue. The Strand itself has been in business since 1927 and is known as the “Sole survivor of Book Row.”

 

With its long-standing history, the Strand has been a home to book lovers of all types for around 88 years now. The store carries a little bit of everything for everyone, catering to the diverse interests for those living in or visiting the diverse city of New York. According to Tim Cresswell, the Lower East Side of Manhattan, which East Village is part of, “has been known as a place of successive immigrant groups- Irish, Jewish, German, Italian, Eastern European, Haitian, Puerto Rican, Chinese.” The majority of the East Village’s population, around 42,536 people, identify as one race, while only around 1,219 people identify as two or more races. With approximately 31,859 identifying as Caucasian, East Village is now known to be a predominantly white area. At a significantly lower number, approximately 6,419 people identify as Asian, followed by Hispanic/Latino at around 5,195 and Black/African American at around 2,719. While these are only the top three largest groups, the area is not as diverse as one might have originally thought. Though in the past few years there may have been some changes in these numbers, as they have evolved throughout history, it is not likely that the overall demographics of the area have changed too drastically. While race is not the determining factor of interests or literary preferences, it is, in some cases, one of the many influences that determine the diverse interests of an individual. This is why it’s important for a bookstore in the city to carry a little bit of everything, even outside of books.

The Strand carries other goods such as coffee mugs, totes, and even onesies, though this merchandise tends to remain relevant to literature or to the store. In this regard, the Strand stands firm in its footing as a location for book lovers which many other bookstores throughout history have been unable to do successfully. “Bookstores, in fact, were really the first drugstores, as we know them now,” writes John Tebbel in the first chapter of his book, A History of Book Publishing in the United States. It has proved difficult for bookstores to survive only selling books, especially in locations which require the bookstore to pay a high rent. Luckily for the Strand, a densely populated area is likely to have many readers with many different interests. Plus, when the surrounding area is taken into consideration, it is clear to see certain connections throughout the community which allow the store to thrive, as well as some which may not.

New York University and The Cooper Union, both in relatively close proximity to the Strand, are home to thousands of bright-eyed students craving knowledge. Without a doubt, the relationship between the schools and the Strand is a symbiotic one. The students bring business; The Strand houses a plethora of knowledge-filled books, ready to be cracked open. On the other hand, Barnes and Noble is just a tad farther and university students may feel more comfortable in the familiar, standardized setting that it has to offer. According to Laura J. Miller, author of Reluctant Capitalists, Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption, chain bookstores such as Barnes and Noble or Waldenbooks “communicated that they were informal places welcome to all by standardizing the interiors from one outlet to another.”

Though the Strand may offer a multitude of books for many different people, some may still find it intimidating due to its atmosphere and size, and may instead choose to go the extra distance to Barnes and Noble. “Because of a continuing association of books with education and an attendant stratification system,” writes Miller, “any bookstore is vulnerable to being perceived as an elite enterprise.” It is possible that some may shy away from the Strand then, with its determination to claim its identity as a store for lovers of literature. Or, some may simply stick to perusing the discount racks outside where they feel more comfortable. Regardless, the Strand seems to have remained an integral part of the community and probably won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Customers can peruse the many aisles at their leisure or stop by for one of the many events being held. They can even request to host one of their own. While in the area, they can check out Second Hand Rose Music to go along with their new (or used) books and grab a bite to eat at one of the many restaurants in the area, offering a vast range of food types from Asian to Mexican and everything in between. The Strand, despite any competition, is a home within a home for book lovers of all types, and is probably more welcoming than those who are intimidated by it believe it to be.

 

Sources

Images/Maps

http://www.google.com/maps

Text

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

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

Tebbel, John. “A Brief Hisory of American Bookselling.” A History of Book Publishing in the United States. New York: R.R. Bowker, 1972. 7. Print.

Websites

http://www.strandbooks.com

http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/union-square-park

The Ultimate Book Lover’s Dream

New York City. The Big Apple. One of the greatest cultural centers the world. A person might dream of walking down the streets of Manhattan, looking for celebrities, or dining in one of the cities best restaurants. They might walk around and look at some of the great cultural relics of our history, such as the Statue of Liberty. If you walk down to the Broadway, you might take in a show or simply look around at the multitudes of bright, flashing signs. But there is more to the Broadway area than just tap dancing and Shakespearean monologues. Its a store that can only be described as 18 miles of a book lovers wet dream.

Strand

The Strand bookstore, located on the corner of Broadway and East 12th Street, is 18 mile long bookstore in Greenwich Village. The Strand contains  “2.5 million used, new, and rare books, covering topics as far-ranging as occult to philosophy to finance.” Browse the used books collection or take an elevator up to the rare books room, where you can find signed copies of classic books like Ulysses. Chat with some of the many book enthusiasts that you will meet wandering the aisles of the store. Or simply talk to the owner of the store, Fred Bass, who has been working there since he was thirteen, before he inherited the store from his father. It’s exactly what Laura Miller described in her book Reluctant Capitalists, in that it is a place for readers and writers to meet as a community, to learn and to grow.

With the 12th and Broadway bus stop right next to the store, it isn’t difficult to travel to this populous and popular area. The Strand stands on what was formerly known at “Book Row,” founded there in 1927, it eventually moved from 4th street to its current location, and it is the last original bookstore from Book Row to stand there. Nows its only bookstore competition is Forbidden Planet, a comic book shop right down the block. Surrounding the Strand is a variety of restaurants, including The Bean coffee shop right across the street from the Strand, where many people like to go and read their new purchases. Also surrounding the store is a Pret a Manger, Pie by the Pound, and various grocery stores such as Daily and Grocery and Trader Joes.

Walk around the area for a few blocks, and you will see that the area is a popular academic one. New York University’s main campus is just a walk down to Broadway and Bound Street. Walk north up to East 16th Street and you will come across Washington Irving High school. Walk one block up to East 17th street, and you will find New York Film Academy. Right nest to NYU is Washington Square Park, and right nest to the New York Film Academy is Union Square Park. Of course, it wouldn’t be New York if there wasn’t several theaters in the area. Unsurprisingly the area is becoming very touristy with all these attractions drawing in visitors from around the world.

As it resides in Greenwich, the area around Strand has always considered an artists true bohemia, with some of the worlds great artists and writers living there. However, when one looks around now, it becomes apparent the the neighborhood has become increasingly gentrified.

Screen Shot 2015-01-29 at 10.38.39 PM

Despite the diversity that New York is so known for, The Greenwich Village area that surrounds the Strand is predominantly white. 79% of the area is white, followed by people of Asian descent at 9%. Unsurprisingly, the bookstore is surrounded by coffee shops and restaurants, as well as the white persons ultimate grocery store, Trader Joes. Nearby is the main New York University campus, whose students get the majority of their textbooks from the store.

The neighborhood is one of the most affluent in New York. The “median household income in Greenwich Village for 2005-2009 was $101,568 – more than 50 percent higher than the median for Manhattan, more than double the median for New York City as a whole, and more than double the median for the U.S.” As such, though the neighborhood seems to still enjoy its bohemian reputation, the Strand is surrounded by some of the wealthiest people in New York City.

Screen Shot 2015-01-29 at 10.43.46 PM

With a total population of around 22,785 people in Greenwich Villages, and almost equally male and female populations, and a median age of 32, though there is a slightly larger amount of women who live in the area then men do. A dense 78, 821 people live in this area of Greenwich village per square mile, making it one of the most populated neighborhoods in New York.

As for people who you will find around the store, there are two main groups: traveling book lovers and NYU students. NYU students get most of their textbooks from The Strand, and seeing how the bookstore is a mecca for book lovers, one will usually find an abundance of tourists in the store. Because owning Stand merchandise is a popular thing to show how much of a book lover you are, tourists will usually walk out of there not only with plenty of books, but with the famous strand onesie or a tote bag. As such, this mix of students, tourists and some of the wealthiest people in the world make the area surrounding the Strand one of the most mixed and interesting neighborhoods in New York City. Even with this shift in culture, the Strand remains one of the true gathering spots for the cities artists, writers and readers who can come together and share their love of books.

 

 

Sources:

Charts:

Greenwich Village Statistics, Race Graph: http://www.washingtonsquareparkblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/greenwich-village-profile-2011-05-161.pdf

Greenwich Village Statistics, Median Household Income Graph:  http://www.washingtonsquareparkblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/greenwich-village-profile-2011-05-161.pdf

Images:

The Strand Bookstore: http://www.strandbooks.com/index.cfm 

Maps:

Google Maps: The Strand Bookstore

Text:

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

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

City Data: http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/Greenwich-Village-New-York-NY.html

The Economy of Greenwich Village: A Profile: http://www.washingtonsquareparkblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/greenwich-village-profile-2011-05-161.pdf