New York's Strand Book Store has weathered many storms and continues to sail on for miles, and more miles. The iconic independent bookstore, located on Broadway and 12th Street and famous for its "Eight Miles of Books" slogan, is renovating, and its second floor adds another eight miles of books. "Though it's probably more than 16 miles," said Nancy Bass, who co-owns the store with her father, Fred.
The second floor will be dominated by art books, which according to Nancy, is the store's biggest selling department. A children's books section will also be featured in one corner, and a coffee bar will be added. The new floor will add nearly 11,000 square feet to the Strand. An elevator will be added to connect the wide-ranging books and bargain review copies in the basement to the rare books on the third floor. Like many of the changes in the bookstore's 77-year history, the renovation came out of necessity and the owners' desire to keep their customers happy.
"I would come by on Saturdays and Sundays and see how crowded it was, and I just knew I had to open it up and make it more customer friendly," said Fred. He added, laughing, "Not too customer friendly—we have to keep some ambience."
The Evolution of Change
The evolution of the second floor, which along with the rare book section on the third floor takes the store's grand total to 37,000 square feet of retail space, has been gradual. "The second and third floor renovations started, like, four years ago, I think," Nancy told PW. "It's hard to remember because we're not corporate, so it's hard to say we had this meeting on this day and that one on that. It's just sort of happened."
"It was a cumulative thing," she continued. "We had big lines at Christmas time that cut the store in two. People couldn't move except from one side to the other. That coupled with having so much inventory and really great books that we weren't able to display made the decision natural."
The history of the Strand, named after the publishing district in London, is as rich and vast as its collection of books. In 1927, Fred's father, Benjamin, opened the store on New York's famed Book Row, on Fourth Avenue. Fred began working there at age 10 and, after serving in the military, took over operations in 1956. While most of the neighboring stores fell prey to economic pressures, the Strand survived on Book Row until the Basses lost their lease and were forced out. Fred decided to move the store around the corner to its current location, where it's been for 45 years.
"The rent went up from $95 to $110 over there, and when I came here it was four times as much," said Fred. "Everybody thought we were crazy for moving off Book Row."
At the time, Fred rented just 4,000 square feet of his current location. The family now owns the entire 11-story building. The third floor holds the offices and online ordering staff (as well as the rare book section), the fifth and 11th floors store inventory and the rest have tenants. The key to the Strand flourishing, while its Book Row colleagues withered away, according to Fred, is simple—it's Fred, and Nancy, and the Strand staff.
"I'm amazed, because the folks on Fourth Avenue were brilliant people, but they didn't train anybody," said Fred. "They kept all their knowledge to themselves. Then, there was nobody to take over, and they got too old and went out of business."
Nancy began gaining knowledge and experience in the book business at age 16, when she started working at the Strand. After attending college and earning an M.B.A. from the University of Wisconsin—Madison, she spent three years at Exxon before coming back home to the Strand, where she's been full-time for the past 16 years.
Concessions
And now, it's also about conforming to the times and making concessions. "I had a friend who owned a great independent store in New York," said Fred. "She was very bright, but she panicked because Barnes & Noble began taking all the bestsellers and placing them in front of the store and marking them down 30%, and they were taking all her business. She asked me what to do, and I said to do the same thing—you won't make as much profit but you'll sell more and keep your customers. She wouldn't do it, and now she's out of business."
The Strand Book Store now employs more than 200 people—each extremely knowledgeable about books. Before hiring anyone, Nancy gives the prospective employee a literature test, written and verbal. The tests are a must, because the Strand has a huge, avid following, and Nancy often needs to lean on her staff to satisfy consumers.
"I have so many resources," she said. "If it's a math book somebody's looking for, I ask somebody who reads math books. All the staff are big readers. It's humbling owning a bookstore because I never feel I know enough or have read enough. I also look at what sells and what I read, which is mostly what I like, and I ask our customers because they have really good taste, and it's almost always great books that they buy."
Unlike many independent bookstores that eschew the online market and are resigned to giving the territory to the chains, the Strand's online business makes up 22% of its $20-million annual sales.
"I encouraged it," said Fred. "I knew as soon as the computer came into our lives that this was going to happen."
"It was an easy transition to the Internet because we had the inventory and good inventory people," added Nancy. "The staff takes orders along with doing the billing."
The Strand also has an annex on Fulton Street and less than three years ago bought Hacker Art Books' 10,000-square-foot warehouse full of inventory in Brooklyn. In addition, the Strand buys thousands of books each day from numerous sources.
"People sell over the counter," said Nancy. "My dad's down there all the time. We get a lot from estate sales and remainders from publishers. We also buy directly from the publishers and get a lot of review copies that we mark half-price. The review copies is a good deal for everyone. Reviewers sell them to us so the writers can make some extra money to supplement, and someone else can read the book and recommend it to friends."
Nancy augments the business by supplying books for personal libraries, and movie and television sets. (Strand product can be seen in The Sopranos and The Manchurian Candidate.) Nancy started the spinoff—called "Books by the Foot" and priced by the quality and "length" of the product—and personally chooses the books based on client interest and need. Strand also has an impressive collection of rare books, including a James Joyce Ulysses signed by the author and Henri Matisse priced at $30,000, and a 1632 Second Folio (second printing) Shakespeare selling for $120,000.
The Strand has begun hosting literary parties and author discussions, and Nancy said that will continue, with plans to hold more on the new second floor, as well as rare book parties on the third. And, most likely, the store will keep growing.
"This has been on our minds for decades, and it's my dad's dream to take over the whole building," said Nancy. "It doesn't feel like a responsibility. I feel like the luckiest person alive, and it doesn't feel like that long ago [that] I was working here when my grandfather was still alive. I think it's exciting to grow it and have so many people love it and to be around books."
