New York has long been home to a robust population of bibliophiles. But trying to find a real brick-and-mortar bookstore in this town is no easy feat. When I visited the Borders superstore in the Financial District just recently I discovered a "Closed" sign on the front door, which struck me as ironic when I spotted three different people reading Kindles on the sidewalk.
It's summer and I love to give books as house-warming gifts when I visit friends in the country. But where can a lady go when she wants to peruse real pages? With both mega and specialty book stores vanishing from New York streets, I was delighted to stumble upon Van Alen Books in the Flatiron District.
Van Alen Books opened its doors this past April and offers a true goldmine for lovers of architecture, industrial design, urban planning, environment, and many other genres, including music, culinary arts, culture and children's literature.
Designed by architecture firm LOT-EK, the modern space features 70 recycled, stacked horizontal doors, creating an amphitheater affect that encourages visitors to browse and linger. There are all kinds of chic nooks to curl up into and flip through pages. It's both a bookish 'culture of community' and an homage to Gotham's venerable design history. And clearly, this is no ordinary bookstore. Taking its name William Van Alen (and the eponymous Van Alen Institute), the architect of the Chrysler building, the store hopes to become a hub for the intelligentsia, hosting special events, workshops, and debates to promote creativity in architecture and design.
Every Wednesday in June Van Alen Books will hold brown bag lunch events and readings, such as At Water's Edge, a new book of student writings and discussions on architecture and the visual arts. The shock of 'the new' always creates buzz, though one of the bookstore's biggest sellers is a Van Alen Institute title, Information Exchange: How Cities Renew, Rebuild and Remember, a topic of great importance as New York faces the 10th anniversary of 9-11. To keep things interesting, the stockpile of tomes changes every 90 days, providing an updated inventory and the classics.
The Brooklyn-born Van Alen left a fascinating and enduring legacy for his devotees and admirers. A student of the Pratt Institute, Van Alen advanced to win the Paris Prize in architecture for theatre design by the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects in 1908. After these extraordinarily influential years working and studying in Paris, he returned home to make his mark in Manhattan. The Chrysler Building, the Art Deco masterpiece constructed from 1928-30, pushes his legacy into the stratosphere (however, believe or not, when the building was open the renowned architect's name was rarely mentioned, owing to his troubled relationship with Walter P. Chrysler). It's one of my favorite skyscrapers in the city, and now I have a whole new appreciation for the building, the architect and the Van Alen Institute, which reminds urban dwellers of our relationship with architecture and the people who mastermind them.