One of New York City’s legendary booksellers is on the cusp of closure as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
Manhattan’s beloved Strand Book Store published a call for help this week, admitting that the business has seen a massive financial decline as a result of COVID-19 and is on the brink of shuttering.
“The Strand’s revenue has dropped nearly 70% compared to last year,” Strand owner Nancy Bass Wyden admitted in a letter posted to Twitter on Friday afternoon. “Because of the impact of COVID-19, we cannot survive the huge decline in foot-traffic, a near-complete loss of tourism, and zero in-store events (compared to 400 events pre-pandemic).”
The store was able to secure a loan that buoyed it through the past eight months, Wyden wrote, but “we are now at a turning point where our business is unsustainable.”
To help, Wyden hasn’t launched a fundraiser but is simply encouraging people to buy the Strand’s wares from its three brick-and-mortar locations and website and to encourage friends to do the same. She also asks that people use the hashtag #SaveTheStrand to help spread the word.
“We’ve survived just about everything for 93 years — the Great Depression, two World Wars, big ox bookstores, e-books and online behemoths. We are the last of the original 48 bookstores still standing from 4th Avenue’s famous Book Row,” wrote Wyden, who is the Strand’s third-generation owner and grew up among its iconic “18 Miles of Books.”
The famed bookstore, founded in 1927 by Wyden’s grandfather, temporarily laid off the majority of its staff shortly after the onset of the coronavirus in March.
“In order to preserve The Strand as a business, with no revenue coming in and no clear idea as to when we can reopen our doors, we have had to temporarily lay off the majority of our staff,” Wyden said on Twitter at the time.