Keep Ideas Alive

Not only is Powell’s City of Books like a city unto itself in size and reputation, they make each customer feel as if they belong to the Powell’s book family, and in a sense reside within that city. There is certain pride in spending time at Powell’s, like there is pride in how some people feel about their home city or town, allowing for another basis of comparison as to why “City of Books” is an appropriate moniker for the Powell’s flagship store in downtown Portland.

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Powell’s Logo

Not only do they provide books, and a lot of them – over a million new and used combined, but they also have rooms dedicated to a coffee shop, an art gallery (in their loft), and a section that sells record albums. They also offer audio books, DVDs, Blue Rays, maps, knickknacks, gifts, and gift cards. Additionally, they have souvenirs like t-shirts, hats, hoodies, socks and much more. Despite all of these things, the first thing you see when you come in either of the entrances are books. They sell what interests their customers without undermining the importance of the books in their shop. A customer is certainly never confused about what type of store they are in or where to find the books for which they are looking. They also have every type of book you could ever imagine, complete with whole sections dedicated to foreign studies, maps, plus an unbelievable amount of out-of-print and hard-to-find offerings.

They claim to be the biggest new and used bookstore in the world. Their nine rooms, which are color coded, supposedly contain more than 3,500 sections. The Meridian app, a free download, was specifically created to help you navigate the City of Books. All you have to do is enter the book title, and you will receive turn-by-turn directions that will guide you through the store!

The amazing layout of Powell’s flagship store is only possible due to the sheer size of the structure. At over 68,000 square feet, one entire city block and 4 floors it is huge by any standards. If you look at the multi-level floor plan you will see that each layer (floor) is carefully laid out, and the rooms and sections are organized by subject matter. Take a look:

The largest of the four levels is the ground floor, which offers as much accessible space as a square city block. This level contains not only four huge book selling rooms, but a buying area, a coffee shop, a souvenir store and the entrance to the parking garage. As you walk through the main entrance (at the corner of 10th and Burnside) you can go to the Information Desk at the center of the Green room. If you go to the left, you can pass through the Blue and Gold rooms to start out in the café.

The second floor offers two enormous rooms, the Red and Purple, both of which offer nothing but books for sale.

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The Pearl Room

The third level, also known as the Pearl Room, has a very large book selling room. Another special feature is the room within a room that is the rare book space. The upstairs area of the Pearl Room contains the Basil Hallward Gallery, which is very active between art exhibits and author events.

The various floors give an air of hominess that customers seem to be looking for when they come to Powell’s. All the rooms have lots of natural light coming in from the huge windows around the outside perimeters. They have sofas, benches, and tables and chairs for the customers to sit at. The children’s section is set up so that youngsters can play. Everything is open and inviting. No special knowledge or status is needed in order to be comfortable in any of the rooms.

The fourth floor is the customer service desk. Far removed from the rest of the store, and only one tiny space, the service desk being located at the very top could suggest a few things. The importance of having the ‘customer service’ accessible seems not to be an issue for those at Powell’s. It is possible that the helpful tidbits along the way, such as signs, applications, and even floating employees that would make the service desk almost obsolete. They promise that you never have to wait in line at Powell’s so maybe there is no need for the desk down where most of the people are. It seems to exist only to handle books on hold and other service duties.

The famous “pillar” entrance.

The store has two entrances: one that comes into the Green room and one that lets you into the Orange room. They are both accessible from the street, but the website suggests beginning in the Green room. Both of these entrances speak volumes about what Powell’s mission is for its customers. When you first walk into the City of Books, you are faced with one of the two most versatile rooms in the entire store. These rooms are set up in a way that, were you in a hurry, you could spend your time browsing what they have there and still have a (somewhat) satisfying experience. (For a complete list of what is in these rooms please see the map, below.) The Green room is a random mashup of samples from all over the store mixed in with some of the fun tidbits you could find throughout.

The Orange room is a bit more practical, with its books centered around activities, but it is also the place that you can go to sell any used books you have. “Keep books in circulation. Keep ideas alive,” says the website. Their philosophy on used books is clear – they value them as much as new books and want their customers to share in that feeling. It’s not what the book is, but the ideas that are inside of it.

Books themselves are not objects to the people of Powell’s City of Books, but they are things to be talked about, admired, and dissected. As Bruno Latour said in his piece “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam?”, these things invite conversation. They open up ideas. It is up to the reader to give the books ideas meaning and purpose and to create a dialogue about the information contained within its text. Powell’s has opened an area in which they invite people inside to read and gain access to books. If money is their first priority, they do a good job of hiding it. Bill Brown seems to think that this way of thinking is incorrect, that problem of having ‘things’ is just the fact that they are open to such interpretation. “For even the most coarse and commonsensical things,” he says “pose a problem because of the specific unspeceficity that “things” denotes.” It is possible then that Powell’s mission is not to begin conversation from the ideas, but to take the ideas from the books and attempt to define them.


Sources:

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Brown, Bill. “Thing Theory.” Critical Inquiry Vol. 28, No. 1. p 1-22

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

The City of Books: The Song Remains the Same

Imagine a wasteland full of abandoned factories, warehouses and waterways, heavy construction equipment, illegal activities and tiny businesses butting up against industry. There are vacant lots and buildings, as well as deserted homes, scattered throughout the neighborhood. Alls sorts of people are starting to move in, attracted by the space and low rents. (Explore the Pearl) This is a picture ot the neighborhood where many settled before it developed into the center for arts and entertainment it was to become. This was the Portland, Oregon of the 70’s. This is where Powell’s Books put down its roots.

The bookstore that originally sparked the idea was located in Chicago, IL. It was created by a student named Michael Powell. After several years, during the 1960’s, of thrifting, consignment and flea market sales of used books, Michael opened a used bookstore in 1970. (Powells.com) His father, Walter, came in 1971 to help out with the growing business.

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Photograph of the original Couch’s Addition map. The Pearl District was originally part of Couch’s Addition and the area around the it had primarily small houses which were home to blue-collar European immigrants. http://explorethepearl.com

Walter went back to Portland in 1971 and opened up a bookstore of his own. As industry was phasing out in parts of downtown Portland, his was one of the small businesses that were attracted to an up and coming section on the edge of the city. They were all hoping to turn their dreams into reality for little money. (Powells.com) Walter was drawn to a section of Portland  that  had long been leaning toward re-gentrification.  It was called “The  Pearl”,  and it was a spot that artists and small businesses found  inexpensive  spaces to work and live, but with good proximity to the  center of  downtown. In 1978, the first artists moved in. (Explore the Pearl) By 1980 the art  galleries and industrial conversion living spaces began to follow as  zoning changes allowed for more mixed usage.

It was the start of developing the famous culture that the Pearl District is so well-known for today. It was also around this time that the district began to gain attention from the Portland Development Commission and started evolving into the area it had the potential to become. (Allen) The River District Vision Plan of 1992 led to the River District Development Plan of 1998, which paved the way for tax monies to be directed back into the neighborhood.

In 1979, Michael accepted his dad’s invitation to come back to Oregon to work the business together. The fact that he and his wife had suffered through a huge snowstorm in Chicago that winter, were trying to care for their newborn daughter, and the declining neighborhood which was unsuitable for family living all played into Michael’s decision to head back to the Portland area in which he had grown up. It was unfortunate that, the night before he was to move back the landlord gave them a year’s notice to vacate, forcing them to spend their first year looking for a place to relocate. (Chamberlin) And this is the location of their flagship store to this day.

But, back to our fledgling bookstore, which was different from the typical bookstore. Walter bought every marketable used book that passed through his doors and quickly ran out of space to store all of them. He had to expand into the used car dealership next door in order to accommodate his entire stock. (Powells.com) They created quite a unique shop. It was one that offered new and used books alongside one another – – and the books actually sold! (Chamberlin)  They called themselves a “book lovers’ paradise.”

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Photograph of Powell’s Books’ shelves. “In the used book world, mixing paperbacks and hardbacks was not so much of a stretch, but when my dad had the idea of bringing in new books too, I had no sympathy. Used and new on the same shelf? It seemed crazy.” ~Michael Powell http://www.getawaybrigade.com/

By choosing to include every type of book, (new and used, out-of-print, and rare to name a few,) and to proffer everything they offered back to the community, we see a very unique type of business evolving. (Chamberlin) Powell’s was there in the beginning, and got more successful over the decades.

So, how does a “used” bookstore like this not only survive for nearly fifty years, but thrive in such a deliberately shifting neighborhood? It has not been replaced, nor changed much about its work ethic in the years it’s been open. Back in 2004, Powell’s did try an experiment of sorts. It was a sort of pop-up store, long before they existed. (Chamberlin) They set up a temporary buying store in Seattle, to help meet the demand for used books. At the time they were responsible for half of Powell’s sales, according to then-marketing manager Michael Drannen.

While everything was built up around it and the state of Oregon spent enormous amounts of money to create the fantastical Pearl District, Powell’s was barely touched. It remains to this day a reminder to everyone that not only can a small business survive, but also that the passion for books is strong enough that a bookstore, located in the right area and run properly, can become and remain an integral part of a neighborhood.

It is really saying something when a book seller’s flagship store not only occupies an entire city block in Portland, Oregon, but that it has done well enough to sustain five thriving locations. Plus, it was once rated by CNN as one of the 10 coolest bookstores in the world, and by USA Today as one of America’s 10 best bookstores. (Cha) Archibald MacLeish poses a question to readers in his address “A Free Man’s Books”. He asks if we really know the power that books have on society, a nation, and even a nation’s life. The passion for books overcomes all else. The Powell’s were able to stock new and used books on the same shelves, all genres and types, because of the overarching power of the books themselves. While some wealthier people, or artistic people, or any sort of majority or minority might want a specific type of book on their bookshelves, the overall love for books allowed all types of books, and therefore people, to mix together at Powell’s. The power of these books is enough to find a place in what is now one of the most prestigious, artistic neighborhoods near downtown Portland. No matter what the fashion, this bookstore earned its place.

 

Sources

Text

World’s Coolest Bookstores

Inside Indie Bookstores: Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon

Explore the Pearl

Places to Crawl Between the Covers

Pearl District Transformation

The darkest timeline: Powell’s Books

Pearl’s District’s Namesake

Powell’s History

Return of the Displaced

MacLeish, Archibald. A Free Man’s Books. Mount Vernon, New York: Peter Pauper. Print.

Pictures

Photograph of the original Couch’s Addition map

Photograph of Powell’s Books’ shelves