Shoppers waited to enter the Strand on Sunday after the bookstore said its business “had become unsustainable.” Jeenah Moon for The New York Times
Books and the love of books have been a constant theme since early posts on this platform. Likewise, libraries are in these pages frequently due to their important and sometimes essential role to communities; and of course librarians can change lives. Bookstores, cultural institutions in their own right, show up plenty in our pages. The Strand has not, even though it has multigenerational resonance in our family. Today it is newsworthy for complex reasons. The title almost says it all. Book lovers respond, for reasons that all our other posts about books and book places hint at. For me the subheading has the word that caught my attention. While book lovers and bookstore lovers respond to this shop’s call for help, some of the shop’s resources were invested awkwardly (I have hinted at such awkwardness plenty of times). When an independent bookseller is an option, consider the value they represent. Meanwhile, thanks to Sean Piccoli and Elizabeth A. Harris for this:
The Strand Calls for Help, and Book Lovers Answer
“It’s awkward because the track record for the ownership here is not great,” one customer said. “But it’s also an institution. My parents shopped here.”
For months, the Strand bookstore in downtown Manhattan, from its fiction stacks to its cookbook section to its rare books, has been nearly deserted. But on Sunday, half an hour before the store was scheduled to open, about a dozen people lined up in the cool fall breeze, waiting to get inside.
They had come in response to a plea from the store’s owner, Nancy Bass Wyden, who announced on social media Friday that its revenue was down nearly 70 percent from last year and that the business had become unsustainable. “I’m going to pull out all the stops to keep sharing our mutual love of the printed word,” she wrote. “But for the first time in the Strand’s 93-year history, we need to mobilize the community to buy from us so we can keep our doors open until there is a vaccine.”
The Strand’s legacy has not been without complications, and Ms. Wyden has a tense relationship with the union that represents her employees. But it is a New York City institution, a throwback to a quirkier type of local retail, and many New Yorkers were unwilling to let it go down without a fight.
“I really couldn’t believe to see that such a big piece of New York culture is struggling,” said Victoria Pompa, 23, who came from Staten Island with her parents after seeing a post from the store on Instagram. “So we just wanted to come and show our support.”
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