Broadway and Twelfth in the rain, the dollar carts under the awning, then the aisles: tables of new arrivals, the tall stacks, the rare book room upstairs, the works on the end caps.
Benjamin Bass opened the Strand in 1927 on Fourth Avenue's Book Row, where dozens of bookshops once stood. The store moved to 828 Broadway at 12th Street in 1957 and claims eighteen miles of books. The city landmarked the building in 2019, and the store is still run by the Bass family.
Source · Strand Book Store ↗
The red awning and the sidewalk carts of one dollar books, the ground floor of long tables and tall wooden stacks under fluorescent light, the tote bags, the staff picks wall, the rolling ladders, the rare book room with its leather and glass. Mood: rainy tuesday. Everything is procedural geometry with painted surfaces; nothing is a scan or a photograph. The room is an interpretation, and it hangs the New Yorkers the census recorded at this place first.