Andreas Brown, "a bibliophile since childhood who bought the revered Gotham Book Mart in Midtown Manhattan from its idiosyncratic founder, Frances Steloff, and kept it alive as a frowzy literary shrine for four more decades," died March 6, the New York Times reported. He was 86.
When he was in his 30s, Brown worked as book and manuscript appraiser. A regular visitor to the Gotham from California, he was invited out to lunch by Steloff in 1967. She was about to turn 80, and "offered to sell him the overstuffed repository of avant-garde publications that she had opened in 1920," the Times noted. Brown accepted the "offer he couldn't refuse--even if, as it turned out, Miss Steloff never completely let go of the Gotham. She remained at her post in an alcove in the store, located in a five-story townhouse on West 47th Street, and in her apartment upstairs. She collected a paycheck until she died in 1989 at 101."
"At the time she sold me the store, she said, 'It's very important that you know you are not the owner, you are only the caretaker of the store.' " Brown recalled in 1990.
Under his care, the Gotham "remained more like a salon than a store," the Times wrote. "Stacks of novels, magazines, reference books and unidentified volumes in still-unpacked cartons towered precariously on the creaky wooden floorboards at what had become a sanctuary for celebrated authors, embryonic writers and aficionados of contemporary literature--the last of the literary landmarks that once dotted Fifth Avenue and vicinity."
Among the writers who developed a relationship with the Gotham were Saul Bellow, Arthur Miller, Marianne Moore and J.D. Salinger. Brown also showcased Edward Gorey's work by placing his books by the cash register, and he archived Tennessee Williams's papers.
Stelloff had opened her store on West 45th Street in 1920 (the Gotham moved to 41 West 47th in 1946). After her death, competition from online sites, astronomical rents and a failure to digitize inventory created financial challenges for Brown, who also became embroiled in a lawsuit with Joanne Carson, the former wife of Johnny Carson, over a loan/investment disagreement.
In 2003, Brown sold the West 47th Street building, where he lived, and the next year opened the Gotham Book Mart & Gallery at 16 East 46th Street. In 2006, "with the store's $51,000 monthly rent overdue, the landlords started eviction proceedings and seized the inventory," the Times wrote, adding that it was sold at auction for $400,000 and in 2008 200,000 items were donated anonymously to the University of Pennsylvania.
"The customers love the nostalgia; they don't want it to change," he told the Times in 2001. "But if you're trying to run the store, the nostalgia wears thin very quickly."
He once observed: "Before I came here and owned it, I was an organized person. I believe in having things filed away and in retrievable order.... The more I straightened things out, the more customers complained."