March 18, 2015

Penn Books, Penn Station’s excellent independent bookstore, needs help

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penn4Penn Books, a small independent bookstore locating in New York’s iconic Penn Station, is in trouble. Vanishing New York reports that the store’s owner, Craig Newman, posted a call to action on the Facebook group #SaveNYC on Monday. Newman’s post on the site, which has been slightly corrected, is below:

I own Penn Books in Penn station. I am trying to survive but it gets harder every day. My rent is now a staggering $45,000 a month, not including property taxes and another $20,000 a year in commercial rent tax. If anybody can do anything or cares about saving my bookstore, please HELP.

Here’s Vanishing New York on the store’s incredible history:

Craig’s grandfather, Arthur Newman, started the bookshop in the original Penn Station in 1962. Remarkably, the shop survived the wrecking ball and reopened in the new Penn Station. Craig started working there in 1978, taking the A-train to work through the gritty city as a 12-year-old kid. He opened the current shop’s incarnation in 1992 after his grandfather passed away.

Penn Books survived the destruction of Penn Station. They survived citywide fiscal crises. They even outlasted Borders. Business is still bustling. But the rent? That’s another story.

Penn Books has survived the destruction of the original Penn Station and the upheaval of the bookselling and publishing industry, but they may not survive the city’s rapid transformation into a playground for the superrich. According to Vanishing New York, the store is only 1,300 square feet, which means that Newman is paying an astonishing $34.6 per square foot.

Alex Shephard is the director of digital media for Melville House, and a former bookseller.

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