In today's NYTimes-
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May 23, 2007
Wall-to-Wall Books, and All of Them for the Landlord
By ETHAN WILENSKY-LANFORD
The line outside the Gotham Book Mart in Midtown snaked down the block
yesterday morning. Several dozen eager bargain hunters, book dealers, art
collectors and former employees of the storied shop waited to bid on a piece
of literary history.
They had each put down a $1,000 deposit for the privilege of attending the
auction. Books signed by John Updike. Letters from D. H. Lawrence and Anaïs
Nin. Andy Warhol's wig rack. All were up for sale.
In the end though, all the property that was auctioned went to the
building's landlord for $400,000.
The auction was ordered after a judgment last fall evicting the store's
owner, Andreas Brown, over a claim of more than a half-million dollars in
rent owed. Now the landlord plans to sell the property.
Yesterday, Mr. Brown, 74, got teary while removing books from the shelves
in his office. He left before the auction began.
"It's a bit like interviewing me at my own funeral," said Mr. Brown, who
has a penchant for quoting Mark Twain.
Even from the beginning, many at the auction figured that they would be
outbid. Many also seemed disappointed that the goods being auctioned were in
such large lots that only major players stood a chance.
"It just all seems rushed and about the dollar, rather than knowing what
you're bidding on or what you even have," said Brandon Kennedy, a former
employee who had hoped to take home a marble table.
But the auction did give the disappointed bidders a chance to remember the
Gotham in all its grandeur.
"It was like a salon," said Michael Patrick Hearn, a longtime customer.
"It was a place for writers to be heard."
Upstairs, Phil Ahrens, who worked in the store for 33 years, sat at his
desk and posed while a married couple who met at the store 10 years ago
snapped his picture.
The staff had been working feverishly to catalog the vast inventory ever
since a move three years ago to 16 East 46th Street from 41 West 47th
Street. Many of the boxes remained unpacked. The store set up a Web site
with pictures of the interior with its antique wood paneling. But the staff
never managed to itemize the inventory online.
On the fifth floor, an elderly dealer from Ireland saw near the top of a
pile a box that was rumored to include books from the James Joyce Literary
Society, which convened quarterly at Gotham for about 60 years. He could not
reach it.
"I came back from Ireland just for this disaster," the dealer, Sean Crean,
said before the auction began. "There's no catalog; there's no lot numbers."
"You buy them blind," David Stein, who worked for the auctioneer, called
from his perch at the end of an aisle. "Removal is the responsibility of the
buyer."
Minutes before the sale began, the auctioneer, Eliot Millman, announced
that some of the most desirable merchandise — including shelves of papers,
books and manuscripts of the artist, author and illustrator Edward Gorey —
had been withdrawn because their ownership was in dispute. A few groans and
shuffles echoed through the room.
The auction started an hour late. The inventory was divided into more than
100 lots. The first offering was for the inventory as a whole. One bid was
made. The landlord's lawyer, John Faust, stood up and placed a bid of
$400,000 on all the items being auctioned. Bidding then began on individual
lots. But the individual winning bids would not count unless their total
surpassed the $400,000.
As the bids came in — $300 here, $25 there — enthusiasm waned, and many
prospective buyers left the room, knowing what would happen.
The landlord's bid prevailed. Still, Mr. Brown said he hoped that somehow
there would be another incarnation of the Gotham.
Some who attended the auction lamented the fact that a benefactor had not
appeared.
"The poets!" said Mr. Hearn, the longtime patron. "Did any of them come
out and support him?"
Gretchen Adkins, a friend of Mr. Hearn's, responded, "A lot of them are
dead."