St. Mark's Bookshop

St Mark’s Bookshop is a strange-looking building. This may be a symptom of its location, on Third Ave between 8th and 9th Streets, as the centerpiece of a triangle of land created by crisscrossing Stuyvesant St. The store inside looks like a lopsided trapezoid, but the designers made the most of the space; there are shelves everywhere, contorted at all angles to fit.
The front of the shop houses new releases, a large selection of critical theory books and some more unique sections, such as Folklore and Anarchism. A large black wall of periodicals stands in the back of the room, next to the sale section, which consists of mostly art books and biographies.
The shelves themselves resemble pieces of modern artwork. The books sit on rows of shiny black metal, held together by what looks like steel plumbing pipes. Each shelf has its own little ceiling, sheets of fogged glass held together by flaking gold bars. Every ceiling has three lights attached, illuminating the books below.
Getting further information about the store was a strain on my budding reporting skills; I’d hoped to interview the man behind the search computer, until I overheard him mutter a few expletives under his breath at a customer who bumped into a stack of periodicals, sending them sliding to the floor for him to pick up.
I spent the next half hour pacing around the literature section, terrified, but when I eventually dredged up the courage to approach Peter Riley at his computer desk, I discovered he was compassionate and helpful.
He told me that the bookshop stays open every evening until midnight, which draws a surprising amount of people because of the restaurants in the area, and also because not much else is open so late during the week.
“Usually we end up shooing people away,” he said. “There’s always a collective moan at midnight when the lights out go out.”
The shop has readings two Thursdays a month at Solas, a bar on 9th St. The authors that participate will often sign a batch of their books and donate to them to the store. Amazingly, the owners do not charge extra for these books. I was charmed by this blatant lack of marketing wisdom; it was totally egalitarian, like something a bookstore would do back in the Sixties maybe, but never today.
“We aren’t trying to scam anyone,” Peter said. “There are cynical people out there, and I’m sure a book or two of ours has ended up on Ebay, but what can you do?”
Peter also told me that when authors based in New York write new books, they will often come by and sign some for the store, even if they are not participating in a reading. The most recent author to do so is musician Patti Smith, who autographed her new memoir, Just Kids.
“Independent bookstores in this area used to be thriving,” Peter said. “Now we are one of the last ones standing. Most of these New York authors come by and sign their books for old times’ sake. They remember us at least.”