Whatever Happened to all those Book Gems? - Gotham Book Mart

      Andy Brown sold all the contents of the Gotham Book Mart to the University of New Mexico in 1974.  What contents that was!  We spent three 24-hour days packing up signed first editions, beautiful books, literary classics, literary mavericks, experimental fiction, poetry of all sorts, previously banned books, and high-quality non-fiction.

     At the end of each day John, the librarian representing New Mexico in this mammoth transfer of books, performed the ritual of sealing the huge box-filled truck.  Then that truck drove away and the all-night crew began packing and piling up more boxes for the next day's truck.

     Some of the most priceless items were too physically slight to go into a box.  A thousand broadsides and countless pamphlets and other ephemera were carefully tucked into a wooden case for extra protection.  That case was the last thing packed onto the last truck.  It wasn't easy getting it on either because that last truck was packed tight.  We all watched.  It was the ending ceremony. 

     A short time later the NY Times quoted Jim Dyke, head librarian in NM, from a telephone interview.  Dr. Dyke said that he liked to think they had moved the Gotham Book Mart from the shores of the Hudson River to the shores of the Rio Grande.  I like rivers and I like books.  The quote particularly appealed to me.  But was it entirely true?   Did young scholars in New Mexico have access to those truckloads from NY?

     No.  Not all of them.  The wooden case was the first loss.  It didn't make it to New Mexico.  John's seal was more than broken.   That truck didn't even get there.  It broke down in Kansas City and the cargo  had to be completely unloaded and reloaded onto a new truck.  The stuff in the wooden case was irreplaceable.  Chris went slightly berserk.  He wanted New Mexico to sue the  trucking company.  The missing case accounted for about 10% of the total value.   Chris was sure that someone associated with the trucking company stole those treasures.  It didn't have to happen that way, but I know why Chris is so sure.  The idea of theft is so much more palatable than the idea of all that collectible ephemera being carelessly destroyed.  Even now, 35 years later, Chris fantasizes about those broadsides and pamphlets surfacing.

     The terms of the bond issue with which NM bought Gotham stipulated that the money must go for material, not accessioning costs.   This meant there wasn't money available to process the books.  Years later almost half the boxes were still unpacked.  That information whetted Chris interest.

     "Well Jim, if you aren't using them, why don't I buy them back from you?" Chris suggested.  I admired James Dyke.  He was intelligent and competent, self assured and upright.

     "No.  Can't do that," Jim explained.  "Those books are assets that belong to the people of New Mexico.    Legally and morally I'm prevented from selling those assets unless the people pass a referendum to condemn them."

     So the boxes remained as they were until Dyke retired.  His replacement was, no doubt, every bit as upright but he interpreted things differently.  He sold all those boxes to the respected and knowledgeable Peter Howard of Serendipity Bookstore in Berkeley, California. 

     So in the end the Frances Steloff/Andreas Brown Gotham Book Mart stock was scattered.  It didn't settle as a collection on any riverbank.

     

Andreas Brown - Gotham Book Mart

photo from the NY Times

April 24, 1975

credited to Larry Morris

     Frances Steloff founded the wonderful Gotham Book Mart in 1920.  Gotham was her life, but when she was 80 years old maybe it seemed prudent to let go a little.  She sold the store to Andy Brown in 1967.

    Steloff was picky about the conditions of the sale.  She approved of Andy Brown.  He was a knowledgeable book lover himself. He'd been one of her many enthusiastic customers.

     And Steloff didn't let go completely.  She attached certain stipulations to the sale.  1.) She could continue to live in her apartment upstairs for the rest of her life.  2.)  She would continue to manage the occult section of the store herself.  3.)  She was to be free to poke around in the sales floor as she wished.

     Steloff's tastes had the store for almost 50 years.  There were books and broadsides and magazines stored in the basement that had been there almost that whole time.  In spite of her continued involvement, Gotham's character changed a bit.  Andy Brown brought his own enthusiasms and extensive book knowledge to add to hers.  It made the store even better.

     Brown grew up in Texas and went to school in California.  After college he came to New York.  He bought books.  As a young man, he had already assembled a remarkable D.H. Lawrence collection.

     Brown knew younger authors and poets to add to the to the store.  In the same way that Steloff had promoted favorite authors, Brown published and promoted Edward Gorey.

     In 1967, the same year that Andy Brown bought the Gotham Book Mart from Frances Steloff, Christopher Stephens graduated from college and moved to NYC.  He took a job on 54th Street just blocks from Gotham.  Chris spent much of the free time he awarded himself (for the speedy work he did on 54th Street) at Gotham.  He knew the store well.  He got to know Brown and Steloff.  I met them too that year.

     I remember the first time I went to the Gotham.  I was meeting Chris there.  Even though NYC is laid out in a grid and you can't really get lost, I got lost.  When I arrived at the place where wise men shop, Chris was deeply immersed in books and didn't notice how late I was.

     I liked the smell of Gotham.  I liked the shelves and tables cobbled together, obviously added gradually to accommodate more and more books.  And of course I liked the books.  I was intimidated, though, by the intellectual intensity of the place.  Maybe because I was just a kid back then.  

     Over the next few years I got more comfortable with the Gotham.  And then I came to appreciate the inventory.  And then I came to really appreciate it.

     Gotham had a small but notable staff.  Phil Lyman had been in the store for a long time.  He knew the stock. he knew the authors. 

     In the late 1960s and into the 1970s, when I knew it, Gotham was quite a store.   Frances Steloff flitted around like a magical fairy godmother.  Even when you didn't see her, you felt her in the books.  Andy Brown was also a strong presence in the books and in the store. He brought a breadth and vision of these times' writers.

     Gotham Book Mart was a treasure house.

blog about book collecting - post about Gotham

Frances Steloff - Gotham Book Mart

     In 1920 when she was 32, Frances Steloff opened Gotham Book and Art shop.  It was a risky adventure.  She didn't have much money.  Her first store was a small basement rental in the theater district.  She had a great love and awe of books, and she owned a couple of hundred volumes of literature, poetry, art and dance.  That was her initial stock.

      Steloff was clever and savvy and energetic.  She added the kind of books that theater goers would like.  She chatted up browsers.  The browsers bought.  She was starting to be a success.

      Later that first year Steloff took on David Moss as a business partner.  Frances Steloff liked the avante-garde, the experimental.  She didn't like censorship, but it was really Moss who pushed the banned books.  They bought them from Europe.  They defied the censors and offered them for sale in Gotham.  Both Steloff and Moss were prosecuted for selling obscenity but neither served jail time.  They were fined and warned.

     In 1923 Frances Steloff and David Moss married.  To celebrate they sailed off to Europe for an extended book buying jaunt.  They bought banned books and made fast friends of the authors.

     Back in NYC they moved to larger quarters on 47th Street, changed the name to Gotham Book Mart, and Moss designed the famous sign: Wise Men Fish Here.   What an incredibly great sign and slogan.

     The bookshop prospered.  The marriage didn't.  Steloff and Moss divorced in 1930.  Steloff resumed her role as sole force shaping the Gotham Book Mart.  She sold what she liked.   She stocked little magazines and art as well as books and broadsides.  She helped found the James Joyce Society which met in her store.  She befriended and aided authors and poets, dancers and artists.

     A partial list of Steloff's friends reads like the curriculum of some fascinating cross-disciplinary course:  ee cummings, Jean Cocteau, James Joyce, Marianne Moore, Tennessee Williams, Alan Ginsberg, Anais Nin, Henry Miller, Gertrude Stein, Lawrence Durrell, Salvadore Dali, Joseph Campbell, Martha Graham.  And many more.  She lent money and published books and promoted creative artists.  Steloff's Gotham Book Mart was a luminous mecca.  Authors and artists met in her store.

     Frances Steloff bought the brownstone on 47th Street when her store made a 3rd move to 41 47th.  She lived in an apartment upstairs.  The building was crammed with books and resonated with creative adventure.

     Frances Steloff overcame a difficult childhood of poverty and disappointment.  Gotham made money.  She overcame the grade school ceiling to her education.  Gotham breathed thought and knowledge.

     She had legendary literary figures as her friends and fans.  She became  a legendary figure herself.  She created and developed and nurtured a truly great book store: Gotham Book Mart.  

     

Bookleggers and Smuthounds, by Jay A. Gertzman an interesting book - includes some passages about Steloff and Moss

Our Joyce, by Joseph Kelly - ditto

website with photos and anecdotes of Frances Steloff