Book Row: An Anecdotal and Pictorial History of the Antiquarian Book Trade

by Marvin Mondlin, Roy Meador

Overview

The American Story of the Bookstores on Fourth Avenue from the 1890s to the 1960s

New York City has eight million stories, and this one unfolds just south of Fourteenth Street in Manhattan, on the seven blocks of Fourth Avenue bracketed by Union Square and Astor Place. There, for nearly eight decades from the 1890s to the 1960s, thrived the New York Booksellers’ Row, or Book Row.

This richly anecdotal memoir features historical photographs and the rags-to-riches tale of the Strand, which began its life as a book stall on Eighth Street and today houses 2.5 million volumes (or sixteen miles of books) in twelve miles of space. It’s a story cast with characters as legendary and colorful as the horse-betting, poker-playing, go-getter of a book dealer George D. Smith; the irascible Russian-born book hunter Peter Stammer; the visionary Theodore C. Schulte; Lou Cohen, founder of the still-surviving Argosy Book Store; and gentleman bookseller George Rubinowitz and his formidably shrewd wife, Jenny.

Book Row remembers places that all lovers of books should never forget, like Biblo & Tamen, the shop that defied book-banning laws; the Green Book Shop, favored by John Dickson Carr; Ellenor Lowenstein’s world-renowned gastronomical Corner Book Shop (which was not on a corner); and the Abbey Bookshop, the last of the Fourth Avenue bookstores to close its doors.

Rising rents, street crime, urban redevelopment, and television are many of the reasons for the demise of Book Row, but in this volume, based on interviews with dozens of the people who bought, sold, collected, and breathed in its rare, bibliodiferous air, it lives again.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781510752566
Publisher:	Skyhorse
Publication date:	10/15/2019
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	456
Sales rank:	879,893
File size:	25 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Marvin Mondlin began working in the book trade in 1951 and has been the estate book buyer for the Strand since 1974. He is a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America and the author of Appraisals. He lives in New York City.
 
Roy Meador was a book collector and freelance writer. His work was published in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Smithsonian, and Analog. He lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
 

Table of Contents

Preface The Lore and Lure of Book Row xiii

Hymn to Fourth Avenue Eli Siegel xxi

Chapter 1 The Smith a Mighty Bookman Was He: G.D.S. and Bookselling from Fourth Avenue to the Collecting World 1

Chapter 2 An Early Beaux Books Quartet Isaac Mendoza Jacob Abrahams Peter Stammer David Kirschenbaum 19

Chapter 3 Dauber & Pine and the Sparrow Sign Samuel Dauber Nathan S. Pine Alfred F. Goldsmith 39

Chapter 4 Giant Schulte's and a "Ship of Books" Theodore Schulte Philip Pesky Wilfred Pesky Dave Butler Louis Cohen 57

Chapter 5 Book Row and the Booksellers' Associations 77

Chapter 6 Bookselling in the Family Way Samuel Weiser Stanley Gilman Scheinbaum Brothers Other Relatives 95

Chapter 7 A Book Row Odysseus and Other Bookmen True Harry Gold Milton Applebaum Henry Chafetz Sidney Solomon 113

Chapter 8 Their Memories Outlived the Bookshops Ben Jack Rosenzweig George Jenny Rubinowitz 133

Chapter 9 The Winning Pair of Jacks Jack Biblo Jack Tannen 151

Chapter 10 Books 'n Booksellers 'n Book lovers Harold Gertrude Briggs Bernard Kraus Harry Ruth Carp 169

Chapter 11 The Bookseller with Strong Opinions: Remembering, Honoring, Fearing and Enjoying Walter Goldwater 189

Chapter 12 Cookbooks, a Scholar, and the Brussel Scouts Eleanor Lowenstein Louis Schucman The Brussel Brothers 207

Chapter 13 Where Have All the Readers Gone? Haskell Gruberger Leon Kramer Seymour Hacker 231

Chapter 14 Book Row Memories: Buyers, Browsers, and Mourners 253

Chapter 15 The Strand Lives On Benjamin Bass Fred Bass Nancy Bass 283

Chapter 16 The Later Generation Timothy Johns Glenn Horowitz Steve Crowley 307

Chapter 17 Book Row - Past Present Future 325

Epilogue Book Row Forever Redux 343

Acknowledgments 349

References 353

Appendix The Island of Books: A Look Back to the Earliest Decades of Books in New York City 363

Index 387

Editorial Reviews

There are still used bookstores scattered about the city, but the loss of this unique neighborhood, as Book Row illustrates time and again, is one to be mourned. — James Polk

The New York Times

Between 1890 and the 1960s, a bustling trade in used and rare books flourished in New York City along Fourth Avenue, between Union Square and Astor Place. Although the stores that once prospered on this little stretch of street have long since closed, the memories of the halcyon days of the bookselling trade in the city still live in the minds of former customers and store employees. Drawing on interviews and on seminal articles published in the early- and mid-20th century, Mondlin (estate buyer at the Strand) and book collector Meador vividly re-create the passion, wonder and adventure of the book trade as it developed along Book Row. The authors paint portraits of the booksellers who established the Row and who secured its reputation among book lovers. There is George D. Smith, the shrewd but gentlemanly book collector who helped Henry E. Huntington build his own library. Called by many "the greatest American bookdealer," Smith provided an example of the persistence and keen insight into the value of books that became the hallmark of the stores on Book Row. The authors also chronicle other dealers such as Eleanor Lowenstein, whose Corner Book Shop specialized in cookbooks; David Kirschenbaum, who developed a stellar collection of Walt Whitman that formed the foundation of the Library of Congress's collection; and Harry Gold, whose Aberdeen Book Company was the first among the antiquarian stores on Book Row to feature paperbacks, in the 1920s. The authors also reminisce about favorite stores, such as Albert F. Goldsmith's At the Sign of the Sparrow, which specialized in theater memorabilia and which very likely provided the setting for mystery writer Carolyn Wells's Murder in the Bookshop. Mondlin and Meador's affectionate paean to the denizens and dealers of Book Row brings to life the glory days of one of New York City's greatest bygone treasures. (Jan.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

Fond, nostalgic account of the rise and fall of the secondhand- and rare-book sellers who once clustered on and around Manhattan's Fourth Avenue. At times as dusty and disarrayed as one of those shops, this survey begins with a snapshot of the seven-block region that served as home to several dozen stores. Mondlin, estate book buyer for the Strand, and freelance writer Meador interviewed scores of bookstore owners, employees, patrons, and neighbors; they scoured old periodicals for stories on Book Row and gathered a plethora of detail and anecdote. (However, an appendix listing shops, addresses, owners, and dates of operation is notably and regrettably missing.) They have done book-lovers a grand service by profiling the men and women who established these legendary ventures, starting with George D. Smith, whose acumen helped Henry E. Huntington acquire his eponymous library in California. Smith opened a shop on Broadway in the 1890s and held sway for 30 years. Subsequent chapters deal with various dealers grouped together for assorted reasons including chronology, kinship, marriage, and even like-sounding names-Jack Biblo and Jack Tannen eventually joined forces to maintain what Mondlin and Meador call "one of New York's finest bookstores in the 1960s and 1970s." The authors explore the conditions that gave rise to the shops (lots of books, low rents) and offer reasons for their disappearance in the '70s and '80s (rising rents, diminishing numbers of book-lovers), though they see the Internet as a new boon to the business. A long paean to the Strand that reads more like ad copy than analysis is typical of a text in which weaknesses compete with strengths for dominance throughout. Aperfect detail or poignant anecdote is sometimes followed by such eye-glazingly trite comments as, "The great finds at Dauber & Pine are no more, but still great are the memories." Equally numbing is the formulaic arrangement of chapters: introduction, biography of the dealer(s), rise and fall of the shop(s), nostalgic phrases of farewell. Priceless items shelved alongside pap and pulp. (16 pp. b&w photos)

Kirkus Reviews

Between 1890 and the 1960s, a bustling trade in used and rare books flourished in New York City along Fourth Avenue, between Union Square and Astor Place. Although the stores that once prospered on this little stretch of street have long since closed, the memories of the halcyon days of the bookselling trade in the city still live in the minds of former customers and store employees. Drawing on interviews and on seminal articles published in the early- and mid-20th century, Mondlin (estate buyer at the Strand) and book collector Meador vividly re-create the passion, wonder and adventure of the book trade as it developed along Book Row. . . . Mondlin and Meador's affectionate paean to the denizens and dealers of Book Row brings to life the glory days of one of New York City's greatest bygone treasures.” 
—Publishers Weekly
 
“For about 100 years, secondhand bookstores clustered on Fourth Avenue in New York City between Union Square and Astor Place. Their names read like an incantation: Samuel Weiser, Dauber & Pine, Biblio & Tannen, the Abbey, the Raven, the Corner. They are mostly gone now, save the Strand, whose mighty 16 miles of books are still funky despite a whole new audience online. Mondlin, who is estate buyer for the Strand, and Meador, a collector, have produced a sprawling and remarkably engaging omnium gatherum of names, personalities, and store lore. Some of the people they profile loved books; some of them loved the hunt; some of them mostly loved the mise-en-scene. . . . For anyone interested in the antiquarian book world, this will be a very special volume.”  —Booklist
 
“‘America's unofficial capital for secondhand books,’ . . . Book Row was the literary Alice's Restaurant: You could get anything you wanted. . . . [Book Row] is written with as much love as the booksellers of Book Row brought to their trade, and it certainly will bring back happy memories to anyone lucky enough to have prowled Book Row's endless shelves.” —Washington Post

"Although barely a shadow remains, Book Row has left behind a colorful history almost as cluttered as one of its stores. According to Marvin Mondlin, a veteran of more than 50 years in the trade, and Roy Meador, a book collector and writer, it is a history of the strange business practices of stranger personalities." —New York Times

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