Mr. Kirschenbaum’s Shop
Who in this beehive has time or desire to view the book stalls in front of Mr. Kirschenbaum’s book store? Why did he select this extraordinary location for his shop? A tall, heavy-set, broad-shouldered Pole, with blonde whiskers, blue eyes, and an expression of kindness on his face that doesn’t seem to correspond with the muscles of his arms of which no prize fighter need be ashamed. And if you walk into his shop you’ll find almost any time between eight a. m. and midnight, men and women there like yourself, from all parts of the city, buying all sorts of books, as recently on a Saturday afternoon when a young girl asked for a copy of Thomas a Kempis and an old man for a copy of Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales.
He has a little bit of everything in his shop, but you have to take the trouble of looking through it in order to discover the “gems” you are looking for. Here is Mr. Kirschenbaum’s story in a few words:
“I served twelve years in a Polish regiment of the Austrian army as a non-commissioned officer. Later on I was an agent of officers and of the nobility in Galicia. There was nothing that I wouldn’t buy of them or that I wouldn’t sell to them. If they needed money I got it for them. One day I decided to emigrate to this country.
“When I arrived here, I got a push cart, went through the streets of New York, bought up everything people had no use for, and then I sold it in the Bowery from my cart. They called me the “Siegel Cooper of the East Side.” Soon I specialized in books. I didn’t know books and their value and I sold them as I am selling them today, as merchandise. I buy them for a certain price and I sell them at a certain profit, and I don’t care how much they are really worth. I haven’t got time to look real values up. I’m too busy selling in quantities. One of my sons knows books. He opened a shop on Fourth Avenue, but I’m satisfied to turn over my stock as quickly as I can. I always had known big people in the old country, and some of them I met here in influential positions. I had a hard time during my first years in America, and they offered me great positions in some branches of business that they knew I was an expert in, but the first demand they made was to shear off my beard: I knew what that meant. I looked too Jewish to them. My beard was never touched by a razor and never will be as long as I live, and my insisting upon the preservation of the exterior of an orthodox Jew made me impossible in any leading position of a business organization, so you see I had to start an independent business. That’s how I happen to be here.”
Mr. Kirschenbaum’s shelves and tables contain something of everything in all languages about all subjects. To spend a couple of hours in his shop will prove that there is nothing new and original in this world that has not been written about by somebody years and years ago.
A Specialist in Excitement
If you think that the sensational paper novel, the mystery story in installments printed on newspaper, the dearly beloved Nick Carter stories, are things of the past because you don’t see them in the regulation book stores where “intellectuals” meet, you are mistaken. They are as widely read as ever, and Mr. Joe W. Knoke specializes in these delights of certain old ladies, of boys and young girls. His little store on Third Avenue between Ninth and Tenth Streets is filled up with the most gruesome experiences in crime and adventure.
“I have been here for twelve years,” he said recently, one could hardly hear his words, so great was the noise of the elevated thundering on its structure and the heavy delivery wagons rumbling over the old-fashioned cobblestones.
“I know my customers well. Some are reading detective stories exclusively; they don’t want anything but detective stories. The younger generation prefers old magazines with short stories to paper novels. I buy them by the pound from rag dealers, from the Salvation Army and everywhere I can get them. People pay as much as five cents for such back numbers. Once upon a time lots of Irish people used to live in this neighborhood and many Irish ladies still come to my shop to buy the works of Charles Garvice and of Bertha M. Clay. These are clean, good love stories. After they are through they bring them back and I allow them a few pennies on their next purchase, but in a few months they ask for the same books again, and some of my customers read every year the same books over and over.
“Then there are the shop girls from near-by department stores. They buy Street and Smith paper novels. The thicker the book the quicker they take it. They tell each other about the most exciting of these love stories, and they, too, read the same books constantly. Over there,” and he pointed to a whole shelf full of mysterious looking pamphlets and books, “are my dream books, books on palmistry and on fortune telling. Old ladies buy them. There are just as many dream books as cook books, and each of these ladies sticks to the same brand for almost a life-time. Often they bring in old torn, finger-marked copies in which the printing can hardly be distinguished, and they wish to get another copy of the very same book. Perhaps it hasn’t been printed for the last thirty or forty years, and you should see their disappointment if I tell them so, and how suspiciously they eye other dream books before they decide to buy one. Young girls also often are purchasers of dream books and books on palmistry. They use them for entertainment at parties and take them along on picnics. One old gentleman comes along every once in a while early in the morning, buys a magazine for a nickel and then spends a considerable length of time before my dream book shelf. I always wonder if he is looking up his last night’s dream. Once I suggested to him to buy a copy, but he got indignant “because he didn’t believe in such superstitious humbug.”