828 Broadway (at 12th Street)
New York City (Greenwich Village)
212-473-1452
Hours:
Monday-Saturday: 9:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m.
Sunday: 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m.
Rare book room closes daily at 6:15
By Jane Feehan
Named after the famous publishing street in London, the
Strand bookstore, opened in 1927, is the sole survivor of New York City’s Book
Row that once stretched from Union Square to Astor Place. For bibliophiles, it’s
a required stop when visiting the city.
The Strand, without comfy seating or café, is no Barnes and
Noble but there is no time to sit with so much to see on its three floors.
They boast eight miles of books, new, used and rare: vintage pulp and banned
books, out- of-print tomes and New York Times notables. Used and new sit side-by-side in stacks or
on tables throughout. Plenty of staffers are available to guide visitors
through rows of shelves or to check inventory on computers. Music on CDs can
also be found here.
The Strand’s rare book room is museum worthy with its
collection of gold-embossed, leather-bound books from around the globe- some
locked behind glass with price tags in the thousands of dollars. Dealers can
also find signed first editions in this room.
Dealers and avid readers sell their books at The Strand,
patrons make it a one-stop-shop for gifts (lots of items other than books), and
casual readers mix with devotees of the written word visiting for a few hours
of pleasant distraction. It’s fantastic. Hail, hail the independent bookstore.
The Strand also sells
books online and at a kiosk in Central Park at 60th Street and Fifth Avenue.
Tags: NYC bookstores,
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store in Greenwich Village, vintage pulp fiction, out of print books, where to
sell books in NYC, film researcher.
