Another way to help the St. Mark's Bookshop — with a $250,000 grant

An email via the Cooper Square Committee...

Last fall you rallied and signed the petition to save St. Mark's Bookshop. Now we're asking for your support once more, by casting your vote to help us qualify for a $250,000 small business grant from Chase and Living Social. Just visit the Mission: Small Business website and click "Log In & Support" where you can access the site using your Facebook account. Enter "St. Mark's Bookshop" in the business search box and cast your vote. If you wish, you'll be able to share your vote and help spread the word. A few clicks can make all the difference. Thank you again for your loyalty to St. Mark's Bookshop — long live writers and readers!

[h/t Shawn Chittle]

Cash mob for St. Mark's Bookshop Sunday afternoon

Citing an article in Publisher's Weekly, Jeremiah Moss reports that the St. Mark's Bookshop is struggling financially again.

Per Publisher's Weekly:

"We’re hanging in there, barely," says co-owner Bob Contant. "It’s a difficult April. Traffic is down. Without an increase, we can’t rebuild our inventory. We’re 20% short of where we need to be."

Last fall, more than 44,000 people signed a petition to help save the bookstore and to lobby Cooper Union to reduce its rent for 2012.

Jeremiah is organizing a cash mob for Sunday afternoon:

#cashmob St. Mark's Bookshop, Sunday April 15, at 1:00 pm. Spend $15 on a book. Spend your tax refund! Then go drink at The International on First Avenue between Seventh Street and St. Mark's Place. Please re-tweet...spread the word.

While all this might be fine in the short-term, Jeremiah notes that "in this iZombie culture, what St. Mark's Bookshop needs most is a powerful new business plan — something that will sustain them in the long run, something that will keep attracting book buyers, day after day."

Meanwhile, the Bookshop has recently joined the Twitterverse — @stmarksbookshop

A thank you from St. Mark's Bookshop

Now, on to the next crisis...

Previously.

Buy a book... or a children's book

Jeremiah has declared this as a Buy (Another) Book Weekend at St. Mark's Bookshop... Meanwhile, EV Grieve reader and blogger Marjorie Ingall notes in a post yesterday what a great resource the store is for kiddy books... with a small but well-curated section. She also talked with co-owner Bob Contant about the children's book section.

Cooper Union agrees to reduce the rent for St. Mark's Bookshop; plus, awkward photo opp!

Things were looking gloomy and doomy for a rent reduction for St. Mark's Bookshop's. Just last week we learned that its landlord, Cooper Union, was broke. The Bookshop owners weren't expecting any deal.

But!

John Leland at The New York Times reports the following:

That changed on Tuesday, said the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer, who met with both parties to work out an agreement. At a meeting in Mr. Stringer’s office, the college agreed to reduce the store’s rent to about $17,500 a month from about $20,000 for one year, and to forgive $7,000 in debt. The school will also provide student help with revising the store’s business plan.

Regardless, co-owner Bob Contant described the store's finances as "fragile."

Meanwhile... AWKWARD PHOTO OPP! From Stringer's office:

At 11 a.m., Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer will join Cooper Union President Jamshed Bharucha and bookshop owners Bob Contant and Terry McCoy to make a joint announcement about the future of the St. Mark’s Bookshop.

Who: Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer
Cooper Union President Jamshed Bharucha
Bob Contant and Terry McCoy
Local elected officials and community leaders

Where: St. Mark’s Bookshop - 31 3rd Avenue

Saddened that Cooper Union is helping to destroy the neighborhood

From the EV Grieve inbox ... reaction from the Cooper Square Committee about Cooper Union's rejection of a rent decrease for St. Mark's Bookshop...

[JVNY]

While Cooper Union's negative decision is a disappointment, the Cooper Square Committee remain committed and vows to increase its efforts to ensure that the St. Marks Bookshop will not become another casualty of the economy. Cooper Union is the landlord for the St Mark's Bookshop.

On Tuesday, October 25, 2011, three separate meetings took place regarding the St. Mark's Bookshop. The bookshop is one of the few remaining independent bookstores in NYC and it is in severe financial crisis. It has requested a rent reduction of $5,000 from the monthly rent of $20,000, which would allow it to continue operating and serving the community.

The first meeting was an impromptu meeting of three representatives of the Cooper Square Committee and Cooper Union President Jamshed Bharucha, initiated when the Committee delivered 43,630 signed petitions to his office in support of St. Mark's Bookshop.

The second meeting took place later in the day between the owners of St. Mark's Bookshop and T.C. Wescott, a Cooper Union Vice President. During this meeting, it was confirmed that Cooper Union would not agree to a reduction in rent.

The third meeting took place at the bookshop with Jamshed Bharucha and T.C. Wescott shortly after the bookstore owners returned to the bookshop. At this follow-up meeting they reiterated that they could not reduce the $20,000 monthly rent.

Joyce Ravitz, chair of the Cooper Square Committee, a Lower East Side neighborhood preservation organization, notes that Cooper Union originally offered the St. Mark's Bookshop favorable terms on its lease in 1993 as a good will gesture at a time when the Cooper Union's expansion of its dormitories had angered the neighborhood. The rent has since gone to $20,000 with built-in yearly raises.

Property values have skyrocketed in this neighborhood partly because of institutions like theaters and bookshops. We had hoped Cooper Union would play a role in stabilizing and preserving the character of the Lower East Side, and are saddened that it seems to be choosing to help destroy it.

It's ironic that Cooper Union touts its proximity to neighborhood bookstores as one of its attractions.

Meanwhile, Jeremiah Moss has started a petition to boycott any business that moves into the space at 31 Third Avenue should St. Mark's Books be forced to close. You can find the petition here.

As he writes:

Sign the petition if you love St. Mark's Books. Sign it if you just love books. Sign it if you're sick and tired of watching New York City's cultural touchstones go down the toilet day after day. Sign it if you miss the East Village before it became a frat house. Sign it if you don't like the way Cooper Union contributes to real estate overdevelopment in the neighborhood. Sign it if you hate having a bank on every corner and a chain store on every other.

[Updated] Letters about St. Mark's Bookshop; and an uncertain future

From the EV Grieve inbox ... a compilation of letters sent to President Bharucha of The Cooper Union on behalf of St. Mark's Bookshop....

Dear President Bharucha

Like many admirers of the Cooper Union I have been very disturbed by the thought that you may force the St Mark's Bookshop to close by imposing rents on them which they cannot pay. The St Mark's Bookshop is as much a New York institution as the Cooper Union is. I urge you not to make this irreversible cultural mistake.

Please reduce the bookshop rent to $15,000 a month until the economy improves. To destroy one of the city's last, great independent stores for the sake of what to you would be a paltry increase in income would be ... if I may say this as someone who has been proud to appear in the Great Hall on many occasions, and to bring the PEN World Voices Festival there ... unforgivable.

Many of us care about this deeply. Save the St Mark's Bookshop. Please.

With my best wishes,

Salman Rushdie.

Dear President Bharucha:

My father is an artist and taught at Cooper Union in the early 1960s and I have lived in the East Village since 1986. I've been a patron of St. Mark's Bookshop when it was located on St. Mark's Place and then when it moved to its current location. I walk by Cooper Union several times a day, always proud that my family was part of its legacy.

I am surprised and disappointed that a community has had to launch a campaign to urge you to reduce the rent of St. Mark's Bookstore, and to now learn that you are still about to make a decision. You should not have had to think twice about this. It's the right thing to do.

The bookstore is a vital, vibrant part of this community, a community that has changed dramatically over the past two decades. The neighborhood is in danger of becoming just like all the other neighborhoods in New York, beholden to those with deep pockets but sorely lacking the artistic and creative qualities that have made the East Village the most special of places, and that give it literary and artistic value. Surely Cooper Union--dedicated to the arts, architecture and humanities--can understand this. Surely, as an icon in schools promoting the importance of visual thinking, you can understand the power of symbols?

My father and I were dismayed to learn that you will not reduce the bookshop's rent by $5,000 a month during hard economic times. What does Cooper Union stand for? A school that does not charge tuition to its students--one of the best schools in the country in what used to be the most arts-friendly neighborhoods in the nation? Please stay true to your founding values and reduce the rent of this worthy bookstore.


Heidi Boghosian
Avenue A
New York NY

Dear President of Cooper Union,


As a novelist based in downtown Manhattan for thirty years I'm desperately worried by the idea that St. Mark's may be lost because of the high rent imposed by Cooper Union. Surely everything Cooper Union stands for would seem to insist that this unique bookstore must survive. I'm far from alone in saying that from my earliest years as a writer in New York I've largely educated myself by means of what I've found on St Mark's shelves: the classics and contemporary works I knew I needed, and a host of unusual and unexpected works I didn't know I needed, but which proved invaluable for my literary and intellectual development. St Mark's has been both a library and an informal meeting place for decades of my life as a writer here.

To allow St Mark's to die would be a serious blow to the cultural vitality of lower Manhattan. It is no ordinary bookstore, it is that increasingly rare thing, an independent that is perfectly attuned to the tastes and needs of the community it serves. It would be a careless act to let it go under, and it would be a source of real regret for all concerned in years to come. Its loss would be very badly felt. We would all suffer, and more deeply than would the institutional bottom line. This is a special case. Please, I beg you, allow St Mark's to continue to nourish one of the last truly creative communities in Manhattan.

St Mark's Bookstore is a special case.

yours


Patrick McGrath

Dear Mr. President,

In the 1930s, Cooper educated my immigrant great-uncle for free. He went on to create an award-winning invention that revolutionized allied military communications in World War II.

He was the first member of my family to go to college. Now a university professor myself, I am writing to ask Cooper to invest -- once again -- in something of unquestionable value to our world and for our future.

I understand that the cost of operating a university, particularly one of Cooper's famed generosity and caliber, in downtown New York is overwhelming.

However, in the case of St. Mark's -- which helps set and preserve the cultural tone of the Cooper area -- issues of value and cost need to be evaluated from higher perspectives.

The East Village doesn't need another sushi bar or boutique. It doesn't need to follow the fate of Soho and become a suburban mall.

It needs to maintain the high intellectual, cultural, and artistic standards for which it has so long been known -- the standards that draw top students, as they did my great-uncle, to Cooper and NYC: students who will later bring honor back upon Cooper through their contributions.

The loss of St. Mark's -- easily the finest curator and purveyor of intellectual, cultural, and art-and-design volumes in the US, matched only by a few counterparts in Germany and France -- would mean more than few thousand dollars in additional rent it would bring.

Please show the world that Cooper is dedicated to much more than easy profit by making an exception in this one important case and allowing St. Mark's to continue to operate.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Professor S.I. Salamensky
Theater and Performance Studies
UCLA

Meanwhile, last night, Patrick Hedlund at DNAinfo reported that St. Mark’s Bookshop isn’t any closer to having its rent reduced by Cooper Union after a meeting with school officials. Cooper Union offered a deferral of one month’s rent, co-owner Bob Contant said.

Per the article:

“They claim they’re broke and they can’t afford it financially,” said Contant, noting that the school offered the shop a chance to postpone paying a month’s rent to another time over the course of the next seven years left on the lease.

Updated:

Here's the Daily News headline today:

St. Mark's Bookshop not granted rent cut from landlord, faces closure despite community's support

Per the article:

Owners Bob Contant and Terry McCoy found out their bid for a $5,000 rent cut was nixed by landlord Cooper Union in a meeting with T.C. Westcott, a vice president for finance and administration at the arts and engineering school.

"They don't feel they can do anything in terms of the rent," McCoy said. "She started out by telling us that Cooper is really losing a lot of money."

Contant and McCoy meet with Coop President Jamshed Bharucha tomorrow.

[Updated] Why you need to give Jamshed Bharucha a call today

From the EV Grieve inbox...via the Cooper Square Committee

Please contact Cooper Union President Jamshed Bharucha immediately. President@cooper.edu or (212) 353-4250.

A Board committee is meeting [today] to decide if they will reduce St Mark's Bookshop's $20,000/month rent by $5,000. Thousands of emails or calls will influence the decision.

Tell the President to reduce the bookshop rent to $15,000 a month until the economy improves. You can add any additional comments.

Your support is invaluable.

Updated. Missed these reports from earlier... both Gothamist and Runnin' Scared noted that there wasn't any meeting scheduled today... A Cooper Union spokesperson told Runnin' Scared that the discussions are ongoing and "the outcome will be announced by the end of this month."

New Cooper Union president to be met by song, pleas to save St. Mark's Bookshop

From the EV Grieve inbox...from the Cooper Square Community Development Committee and Businessman’s Association

“A Call to Action! Join us at the Inauguration of Jamshed Bharucha, the incoming President of Cooper Union and Let’s Make our Voices Heard – St. Mark’s Bookshop Must be Saved!”

New York, NY: St. Mark’s Bookshop, one of a few remaining independent bookstores in New York City, is in a state of crisis. It has appealed to their landlord, Cooper Union, to reduce their monthly rent of $20,000 by $5,000 until it is able to recover from the effects of the downturn in the economy. A combination of the difficult economy, the dramatic changes in the publishing industry and the escalating costs of doing business have pushed St. Mark’s Bookshop to the brink. Cooper Union has indicated that it is looking into this matter, but no commitment has yet been made.

On Tuesday, October 18th, at 12 noon, Jamshed Bharucha, will be inaugurated as the new President of Cooper Union. We will be singing and handing out an open letter to invitees as they enter the Great Hall. Let’s raise our voices together in song and ask those in power at Cooper Union to do the right thing and agree to the rent reduction before it’s too late – so that this vital landmark, which serves the diverse community of the Lower East Side, is not forced out of business!

(Sung to the tune of Home on the Range, lyrics by Frances Goldin)

“Oh give me the word
That we long to be heard
That the St. Mark’s Bookshop will be saved.

That you know it’s a gem
With a stroke of your pen
That its’ future’s forever engraved.

LONG LIFE TO ST. MARK’S
IT WILL NOT BE FED TO THE SHARKS
It just needs less rent
And if that’s your intent
You will most likely earn
Real High Marks.

If you need help with the music...

Michael Moore at St. Mark's Bookshop this Thursday night

From the folks at St. Mark's Bookshop...

We’ve arranged a signing for Michael Moore’s new memoir HERE COMES TROUBLE at St. Mark’s Bookshop this Thursday at 7 p.m. It’s all a bit impromptu but we will have a mic on hand.

A Cooper Union memo about St. Mark's Bookshop

An anonymous reader left this comment yesterday:

Internal Memo from today.....
To: The Cooper Union Community
From: The Office of Public Affairs
Monday, September 26, 2011

Last week the Board of Trustees discussed the ongoing matter regarding St. Mark’s Bookshop, which we understand many in the Cooper community have been following. We are sharing with you the outcome of that meeting before we inform those outside of The Cooper Union who have expressed interest in the resolution of St. Mark’s request. The Board of The Cooper Union is giving serious consideration to the matter regarding St. Mark's Bookshop. After discussion at its recent meeting, the Board decided to have the situation thoroughly examined by its Finance and Business Affairs committee. The Board believes that the request deserves the committee's analysis, the outcome of which will be announced at the end of October.

This is in line with what the St. Mark's owners told Jeremiah Moss last Friday.

[Updated] Report: St. Mark's Bookshop and Cooper Union to meet again next week

As you know, the owners of St. Mark's Bookshop were to meet yesterday with Theresa C. Westcott, Cooper Union's Vice President of Finance, Adminstration, and Treasury, to negotiate a rent reduction. According to NY1, Westcott will present the issue to Cooper Union's president and trustees. The two sides plan to meet again next week, NY1 reported. "[W]e're optimistic that we can work things out," co-owner Bob Contant said.

Previously.

Updated:

WNYC has a story on the battle too... I don't recall seeing this fact anywhere else:

Cooper Union doesn't actually own the building that holds the store, but leases it from a company called Casabella Holdings, and sublets it to St Mark's. Some of the people signing the petition have accused Cooper Union of being greedy and trying to force St. Marks out of the area.

But Cooper Union is hardly your typical college. It's one of the few in the country that offers all its students full scholarships, each valued at $38,500 a year. The income it generates from its real estate holdings, according to [spokesperson Jolene] Travis, makes up 55 percent of the college's revenue.

Also in the piece!

One real estate analyst, David Nouhian of the Metropolitan Property Group, argues that the most sensible solution would be for St. Mark's to move to a cheaper location, perhaps mid-block.

"That landlord could get a lot more than $20,000 a month in today's market," Nouhian said.

Find the whole report here.

What kind of neighbor will Cooper Union be after today?

As you likely know, the owners of St. Mark's Bookshop will meet today with Theresa C. Westcott, Cooper Union's Vice President of Finance, Adminstration, and Treasury, to negotiate a rent reduction, as Runnin' Scared noted on Monday. Co-owner Bob Contant is aiming for a $5,000/month reduction, but says the new administration has not been "particularly sympathetic." They have struggled to pay the market rate that Cooper Union set at $20,000.

There's plenty of commentary on the matter. Jeremiah Moss writes an Open Letter to Cooper Union today at Vanishing New York. He outlines how Cooper Union has helped usher in "a tsunami of hyper-gentrification," from the Bowery Bar to the glassy hell of 1 Astor Place to the destruction of 35 Cooper Square.

Per Jeremiah:

If St. Mark's Books is forced to close due to unyielding rent, whatever business moves into their space at 31 Third Avenue will be boycotted and protested by the thousands of people who read this blog and all the blogs connected to it. Nothing will thrive there--no bank, no cupcake shop, no kitten adoption center.

Meanwhile, Rob at Save the Lower East Side has more pointed commentary.

Peter Cooper himself was all about giving back to the community. Peter must have long ago tired of spinning in his grave over what has become of his life's dream, free higher education for the working class. How many ways can Cooper Union spell "betrayal"?

He goes on to wonder if the neighborhood even deserves the bookshop.

The NYU students have their own bookstore, filled with all the books they need and more than they can handle. As for the rest of the neighborhood, this place is a youth destination for children of means, not an intellectual or countercultural destination anymore. It's heart is commerce now, not anarchy. Freedom must be purchased, and it exacts many prices.

And you know about the petition to save St. Mark's Bookshop. It's here.

Meanwhile, there was a robust discussion on the topic on the last EVG post here.

[Photo via John Roca the Daily News. Read their article here.]

First Twitter celebrity endorsement for St. Mark's Bookshop

It's Britta Perry from NBC's "Community." Yes, I had to look that up...

Previously.

[Thank to EVG reader Mike for the tip]

How you can help save the St. Mark's Bookshop

From the EV Grieve inbox .... Background here

[JVNY]

The St Mark's Bookshop has a long tradition in the Lower East Side and serves an admirable and increasingly rare function. St Mark's is struggling to pay the market rent that Cooper Union is charging them at 31 3rd Ave. A significant rent concession by Cooper Union could save this irreplaceable neighborhood institution.

So I created a petition to Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science, which says:

"The St Mark's Bookshop, a vital Lower East Side cultural institution, needs a rent low enough to survive. Join the Cooper Square Committee petitioning Cooper Union, the bookstore's landlord, to give St Mark's Bookshop a lower rent."

Will you sign this petition? Click here

Joyce Ravitz
Chairperson
Cooper Square Committee

Tough economic times: Enduring a 'perfect storm' at the St. Mark's Bookshop

Jeremiah recently posted this rather ominous photo from outside the St. Mark's Bookshop...

[JVNY]

An article in The Villager this week confirms that the situation is bleak at the bookshop.

The latest local victim in an ongoing national trend afflicting independent booksellers, St. Mark’s Bookshop has considerably downsized its staff due to rising costs and declining sales.

The current economic downturn coupled with steep overhead costs and dwindling sales finally forced the management of St. Mark’s Bookshop, on Third Ave. near E. Ninth St., to lay off all of the shop’s part-time staff and to reduce the hours of full-timers. The downsizing occurred last October, but the business continues to struggle because of the ongoing economic stresses.

David Russo, a manager at the bookstore, said St. Mark’s is enduring a “perfect storm.”

According to Russo, St. Mark’s is in no danger of shuttering in the short term, but the store’s situation is still dire.

“I wouldn’t say it’s merely a little tight, but I wouldn’t say we’re planning on closing the store,” he said. “That’s not the plan right now, but that is a possibility, I would have to say.”

With the addition of the fancy new 51 Astor Place tower across the street, things can only get worse. As the article points out, "the bookstore occupies valuable real estate and staff members said the landlords are unwilling to lower the rent for the space."

“Mostly, when we deal with them, we’re told that they could get a lot more for the space,” Russo told the paper.

'Confessions of an Indie Bookstore Clerk'

Our friend Karen Lillis has a memoir in progress titled, "Bagging The Beats At Midnight:
Confessions of an Indie Bookstore Clerk." Here's an excerpt via Undie Press.

"From age 27 (the age that rock stars die) to age 35 (the age that women stop stating their real age), I had the privilege of working at St Mark’s Bookshop in Manhattan’s East Village. During my short decade as a bookstore clerk, books were the stuff of my daily life: My friends were bookshop employees and bookstore hounds, and my friendships revolved around the books we recommended to each other, enthused about, lent out, insisted be read, threw across the room, and gave each other with heartfelt inscriptions. When I was in the red, I looked for ways to sell books on the side of my dayjob as a bookseller. My retirement account was a pile of stowed-away first editions which I hoped would increase in value. Days off were often spent at used bookstores. Weeks off were spent in the bookstores of other cities."

Keep reading here.