By Noëlle de Leeuw
The signage on the façade of 2020 Broadway still says Shakespeare & Co., but the bright red stickers on the windows tell you otherwise. This past weekend, Strand Bookstore quietly opened its doors in the Shakespeare & Co. storefront between West 69th and 70th streets, welcoming Upper West Side wanderers as the staff continues to get their store up and running.
It is the Strand’s second Upper West Side location.
Over the past few weeks, the Strand has slowly moved into the space, making changes along the way. The bookstore sells new, rare, and used books. It significantly expanded the children’s book section in the back of the store, added a prominent section of New York books, and, while they were at it, gave the shelves a fresh paint job.
As soon as the store was ready to sell books, the doors opened to neighborhood dwellers. However, not everything is in place yet at the newest addition to the Strand. The signage, for one, needs to be replaced. The café at the front is yet to open, once a city permit is secured. So, for now, in lieu of a blueberry muffin or almond croissant, a selection of rare books is on display in the glass pastry cases.
With the opening of the Lincoln Square location, the Strand is expanding its Upper West Side residency. The independent bookstore also operates a location on 450 Columbus Avenue between West 81st and 82nd streets. The Strand’s flagship bookstore is on the corner of 12th street and Broadway, where it has been since 1927.
The opening of the Strand, however, also marks the closing of Shakespeare & Co, which had been part of the Upper West Side fabric, on and off, for over forty years. The first Shakespeare store opened in 1983 on West 81st street and Broadway. That store was featured in the 1989 romantic comedy “When Harry Met Sally,” the scene in question showing Harry (Billy Crystal) watching Sally (Meg Ryan) from the self-help section. “Someone is staring at you in personal growth,” Sally’s friend Marie (Carrie Fisher) tells her.
That store closed in 1996.
The indie bookstore returned to the Upper West Side in 2018, when it opened its Lincoln Square location, now taken over by the Strand. In March of this year, Shakespeare & Co. closed its store on Broadway and West 105th Street, after just one year in business. That same month, its Upper East Side location shut down. The Lincoln Square store was its last location in New York City.
Every staff member who worked at Shakespeare & Co. at 2020 Broadway was offered the opportunity to stay on. “Shakespeare & Co. was closing,” said Kat Pongrace, the marketing director of the Strand, “and it felt important to us to make sure that the neighborhood didn’t lose another independent bookstore.”
Since the opening, the neighborhood has been trickling in. In the first days in business, Nicholas Alexiou was browsing the fiction offerings. An Upper West Side resident, Alexiou said he used to work at the Strand on 12th Street in 1974. “It was a chaotic thing,” Alexiou says of the flagship store in those years. “There were three people who called themselves booksellers, but the rest of us were actors and writers.”
Though he hasn’t been on the Strand’s payroll for over fifty years, Alexious still carries his 1970s olive green cross-body bag bearing the bookstore’s name. As soon as he saw the new store had opened on the Upper West Side, he walked in.
“I think it’s great,” Alexiou said. “I mean, the Strand is a special place.”
Another early customer, Sarah Rehm, works in the neighborhood and said she used to wander into Shakespeare & Co. all the time. “It’s sad, because I was in here right before they switched over,” she said, “but it’s better than no bookstore. It’s nice to still have a bookstore.”
Her friend next to her, Mackenzie Throwbridge, chimed in: “I was just saying when we were walking around that our neighborhood in Queens doesn’t even have a bookstore at all.”
Cassie Wooley, one of the new store’s managers, said she was happy to still be working with the same people from the store’s Shakespeare days. When asked what she thinks of the takeover, Wooley simply shrugged: “It’s just a different name on the door.”
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Thank you, Strand – for being a bulwark of civilization along that retail/restaurant stretch.
Can’t wait to get reading!
Welcome, UWS Strand #2! The neighborhood and the city are in dire need of repopulation with bookstores, especially ones offering both new and used titles.
Four long-gone branches of the Strand in Manhattan come quickly to mind. Anyone else remember their locations? Were there others?
The original NYC Shakespeare & Co. actually opened in 1981, not 1983. Interestingly, at first the telephone directory listed it as “Shakespeare & Co. West” — because NYC is west of Paris?
According to AI, “Several New York City neighborhoods are known for their high concentration of bookstores. Williamsburg and the Upper East Side boast the most bookstores with seven each, while Midtown, Upper West Side, Flatiron, and Chelsea all have five or more. ”
This doesn’t sound right to me. I think the UWS has a higher concentration of bookstores.
Never take the veracity of anything Artificial Idiocy tells you for granted.
However, we could try listing them:
(1) Strand #1
(2) Strand #2
(3) B&N
(4) Westsider
(5) West Side Judaica & Bookstore
(6) White Rabbit
That’s already one more than AI claims for the UWS — but one fewer than the seven for Williamsburg and the UES.
We could cite Book Culture, though technically it’s outside the UWS (112th St.); and although Westsider Records also carries books, that might also be a stretch too great. So it seems as if Skynet might be onto something here. Am I forgetting any?
Scores of additional UWS bookstores come to mind, but alas, they are all defunct!
You can add the Julliard Store (144 W 66th St.).
Excellent! That’s just the sort of overlooked (by me, anyhow) place I was hoping for. So now the UWS is tied with Williamsburg and the UES — and with only one more spot we can regain our rightful #1 ranking.
Hmm, you’ve given me an idea: can we count the Fordham Store at Lincoln Center (113 West 60th Street)? I’ve never been in there and couldn’t say.
Artificial Idiocy! Oh, I like that! I’m going to repeat that!
Westsider has 2 locations. One on 81st and Broadway, and another on 72nd street. That one is called West Side Records, but they sell more books. That brings it up to 7!
Well, yes, but as mentioned above I hesitated to include Westsider Records in that it’s not primarily a bookstore, even though it does carry a good selection of books. Maybe the book/record ratio has changed since I last visited. Anyhow, count it if you wish, though I was hoping there might be a few more eligible spots I’d forgotten. If you do count it, we’re at least tied with the other regions.
It’s a far cry from the golden age of UWS bookselling! I recall 26 neighborhood bookstores from the 1970s–80s that are no longer with us.
Among those that are no longer with us, let us have a moment of silence for the late lamented Murder Ink, Endicott Booksellers, Bank Street Books and the wonderful Parnassus.
Alas, wonderful Parnassus (216 West 89th Street; 1966–Mar. 1, 1976) came and went before I arrived in NYC. Here, though, are a few others the demise of which you may join me in mourning:
Applause Books: 211 West 71st Street
The Bibliophile: 148 West 72nd Street
Corner Book Shop: 269 West 72nd Street
B&N, Jr. Ansonia: 2105 Broadway
Nine Ninety Nine Bookshop: 999 Madison Avenue
Gryphon Books Annex: 246 West 80th Street, 2nd floor
Bloomsday 2 (AKA Free Verse Book Shop?): 2259 Broadway
Shakespeare & Co.: 2259 Broadway
Nine Ninety Nine Bookshop West: 2345 Broadway
Gryphon Books: 216 West 89th Street
New Yorker Bookshop: 250 West 89th Street
Womanbooks: 255, later 201 West 92nd Street
Paperback Discounter: 2517 Broadway
Pomander Books: 252 West 95th Street
Dolphin Book Shop: 2743 Broadway
I remember Murder ink. I was on sabbatical working on a book about Dorothy Sayers. UWS ain’t what it used to be
I only see 4 bookstores listed on Google for the UWS. The new Strand location hasn’t been added yet. Just curious, but if you think the count is wrong then can you name more than 5 bookstores on the UWS?
So much for Google! (Which is now AI-infused….)
I hope they dont lock the bathroom door like they did when they took over the Book Culture location on UWS… How can you claim to offer a quality children’s book area and no bathroom?
“For Customers Only” is an excellent policy.
You mean when Shakespeare & Co took over Book Culture? Or you mean the 81st street location?
Hannah,
Do you mean Columbus Ave Strand doesn’t have a bathroom that customers can use, but they have to ask for a key?
They had the bathroom open as recently as 2021, but closed it permanently to the public. It hasn’t been available for years. The closest public bathroom is at Lenwich a block north.
Happy to see another independent bookstore. Less happy that it’s probably just as wheelchair-inaccessible as its predecessor. My husband would love to check the store out but it’s not much fun for him if he can’t get to the actual books. I would gently suggest that in 2025 this shouldn’t be happening.
As a Shakespeare&Co employee, it was embarrassing. I truly apologize.
I was disappointed in their science selection. Like 1/4 what Shakespeare had. And vibe w/o the cafe just isn’t the same. I miss Shakespeare 😢
A good science section can be hard to find. Will anything ever rival the old McGraw-Hill Technical Bookstore? I doubt it.
The café will come once they receive their permit
Welcome, Strand!
As I attended college on 12th Street, I frequented the Strand at that location. Certainly a great variety of out of print books!
I am grateful the Strand came into this space though sad to see Shakespeare & Co. go.
I believe the first Shakespeare & Co was located in a small space on 87 th street between west end avenue and Broadway on the north side of the street…..to the east was a garage and then the first Red Apple Suoermarket which was the first of John Casametites stores…..the beginning of his chain.
What Pat P said! The 271 West 87th St. site was the original Murder Ink store, founded in 1972 by Dilys Winn, sold to Carol Brenner in 1975 and to Jay Pearsall in 1989. Then in 1992 it moved to 2486 Broadway, where it remained until its closing on Dec. 31, 2006.
NYC’s Shakespeare & Co. began at 2259 Broadway (cor. 81st St.) in 1981 after Bloomsday 2 (AKA Free Verse Book Shop at one point? I have an old receipt…) vacated that space earlier the same year, and it survived there until August 1996, having opened a small empire of other branches throughout the city in the interim. In 2017 the building was demolished, taking with it many memories.
And our original Bloomsday Bookstore, you ask? All I know is that it opened in 1974 at 2879 Broadway (112th St.), later home to Bank Street Books. When it closed, or when Bloomsday 2 opened, remain a mystery to me.
That store on 87th was Murder Ink
What’s the city’s excuse for not approving the cafe permit in time for the opening? Is the inspector’s rubber stamp out of ink? The delay is hostile to retail. With all the empty storefronts on the UWS, the city should bend over backwards for business. Follow up, West Side Rag!
A welcome addition to the neighborhood! I bought a super-cute plant pot in there – it looks like a stack of books by Jane Austen. Adorb.
To any of the former owners/employees of Murder Ink: Oh, how we miss you! What a brilliantly curated user-friendly store that place was. Thank you for the immense pleasures.
Welcome again, Strand. Books are good. Bookstores are great. Independent bookstores are eve better! See you very soon!
I’m truly sorry to see Shakespeare & Co was not able to sustain itself , especially given its history on the UWS – but very grateful that Strand has stepped in to fill the void.
Free advice to Strand:
Can the cafe.
You are a book store not a public resting place for non-customers to plant themselves all day,
Cafes are nice in the winter, and with the price of beverages it might actually help sales.