Tag Archives: Hollywood Boulevard

Hollywood’s Lost Book World East of Vine

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From Bookstore Memories Time Capsule Archives: 

Universal Books, Hot Dogs, Nazi Bikers, Texas Rangers, and the Hollywood Bookseller’s Baseball League Starring Icky Icky Icky as a Fastball

Mark Sailor’s Nostalgic Memories of his Early Days in the Long-

Vanished Hollywood Book Trade East of Vine Street

Universal Book Store
Photo by Wayne Braby

Editors note:  Mark sailor wrote this about his early adventures in the Hollywood book trade.  The manuscript is undated, and I found it in Frank Mosher’s storage unit many years ago when I helped him move an enormous bunch of books and shelves.  I worked with dear friend Mark during the last couple of years of Cliff’s Books. We had known each other since the early 1970s.  He  died about a year before Cliff’s closed down.  Hope you enjoy this travel back to the days when Hollywood was lined with book stores, the golden age of the late 1960s and the 1970s.

Story by Mark Sailor

The south side of Hollywood Boulevard at Argyle was a squalid corner in the early seventies.  Universal Books existed only because of the times in which we lived:  a group of tiny shops jumbo packed between the Dog House and Marlow’s Magazines on the corner.  Serenaded by an endless rendition of Dueling Banjos through the paper thin walls that separated Universal Books from the cowboy bar just next door, we hosted Nazi biker gangs curbside on Friday Nights.

Marlows Book Shop
Photo by Wayne Braby

Our regular clientele included Don Morphis, “Head Reverend of the Church of Satan of Hollywood”, and Frank Braun, ex-Texas Ranger, a sometimes unwelcome frequent flier.  Frank had 19 packages of books on the hold shelf above the front counter of the book shop.

We lived in a time of the world of dreams as large as the Bingo Mansions and the Hollyberries who instantly occupied their immediate celebrity west of the Sunset Strip.  But we lived in a real-world east of Vine Street where rents diminished the farther one traveled into the habitat of ex-Nixonista refugees from Asia and the lands of the troubled Middle East.  Like living on Pluto at the edge of the Solar System,  we were at the edge of the Hollywood book world, east of Vine, in the shadow of the fading glamour of the Brown Derby and The Broadway Department Store.  In fact, just west of Argyle was the last outpost of the Hollywood Dream, the beautiful Pantages Theater.  The bulk of the bookshops were sprinkled west of Vine all the way to Highland Avenue.

I was a student at Occidental College.  My scholarship did not include meals.  I worked at Universal Books at night.  I learned to “slap jackets” there and my mentor Larry Mullen taught me cataloging.  It was my job to catalog the Black Americana collection started by Jerry Weinstein, a book maven and previous owner.  Jules Manasseh was the co-owner and had entered the book world as an auto insurance salesperson.  Jules’ manic presence as banker and novice bookseller provided a fertile backdrop of excitement and angst.  We were always broke.  Mrs. Manasseh’s matzoh ball soup on weekend nights was a blessing unexpected and usually happened following a big sale.

Universal Books was a small shop of 1000 square feet divided into two rooms; a main browsing parlor on Hollywood Boulevard and a backroom where books were processed by myself and fellow future bookseller Melvin Gupton.  Melvin was a student at Ambassador College.  He worked nights as I did.  Later, Melvin moved to Valley Book City on Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood.  In the eighties Melvin opened Modern Times Bookshop in Pasadena and specialized in art and first editions.  His brilliance was as unexcelled as his petulance toward everyday duties like making coffee and bathroom cleaning.  His early death some years later was a loss to the world of knowledgeable and seasoned booksellers.

It was because of the shortage of money that I was chosen to call Frank Braun, ex-Texas Ranger so he could pay for one or more of the nineteen packages on hold.

“You wanna get paid, huh?”  Frank Braun was terse.  “You bring packages #2 and #19 to the Dog House in twenty minutes.”

“How will I know you?”

“Don’t worry about me – I’ll know you,” he quipped.

I turned to Larry.  He was already getting the packages down off the shelf.

“You gonna tell him Frank Braun’s got a gun?” Jules pealed.

“Don’t worry.  He won’t use it.” Larry answered.  His voice was flat as a pancake.

“Why me?” I asked.

“Cause he’s a nut,” Jules answered, “and an anti-Semitic bastard.”

“You gotta go” Larry told me.  “We need the money.”

The Dog House was a little Cinderella-style building 40 feet long and about as high as two trailers stacked sandwich style on top of one another.  The dogs were as good and cheap as the clientele.  Expatriates of the cowboy bar mingled with horse racing cappers.  Hollyweirders abounded.  Sometimes the lines into the Dog House exceeded the benches waiting for diners.  It was a jumpin’ joint.

An arm in a trench coat yanked me.  “You Mark?” the voice demanded.

I nearly dropped the book packages.  It was Frank Braun.

“Guess you wanna get paid?” Frank peeled open his Bogart-like coat, revealing a 45 and a checkbook.  I was so scared I almost washed my pants.

“You seen Larry lately?  He’s a hang dog and lost his spirit.  You tell Jules ‘the Jew’ Manasseh that Frank Braun’s ready to meet him anytime.”

I got Frank’s check and hurried back to the bookshop.  Sans hot dogs, sans kraut.

Universal Books existed as a bookshop because of the high esteem in which books were held.  No electronic device could replace Uncle Tom’s Cabin with the telltale “Stereotyped by Hobart and Robbins” and the 1851 moniker in two blind stamped brown cloth volumes which made it an exceptional and rare work.  No computer could duplicate signed copies of W.E.B. Dubois “The Souls of Black Folk” or Jean Toomer’s “CANE”.  The electronic equivalency and/or convenience of the Kindle iron lung dependent on a battery or a cord mirage existence, now you see it, now you don’t, just didn’t exist.

Book scouts, legendary and famous, were always coming into Universal Books.  Maybe they wanted money from the previous book buy, maybe they didn’t.  I got to know Jack Crandall, who later discovered a collection of incunabula in Kansas and bought an honest to God mesa in Arizona, complete with Indian bones and the remains of failed Conquistadors.  Jack was great; he found the exceptional book and we sold it.

‘Doc’ Burroughs, a gruff and talented book scout, provided occult and mystical books.  His presence was often joined by another great bookseller, Paul Hunt.  Paul’s star as a bookseller traveled and ascended into several great shops in Burbank, including Book Castle, and a store called Atlantis Book Shop, specializing in the paranormal and UFOs.  An encouraging friend, Paul also helped create the California Book Fair, a convention of booksellers gathered annually at the Glendale Civic Auditorium or the Burbank Hilton.  It was there such luminaries as Jay Leno and Kevin Tighe began their book collecting careers.

Doc, Larry and Jules provided the final boot to the Nazi Bikers.  On Friday nights “Icky Icky Icky” the biker leader would come in, pick a Bible from the shelf, tear it up and goose-step out of Universal Books with his arm and middle finger doing a HEIL HITLER.  After some weeks of this grandstanding, the boys (Jules and Larry) called Doc for help.   At about 8:15 that night, Icky Icky Icky met a baseball bat invitation from the “Hollywood Booksellers Baseball League”. His head was to be the fastball.  He was escorted out of the store.  It took a lot to subdue Doc Burroughs, who really wanted some batting practice.

The answer to our troubles was a bullet through the front window some weeks later.  Ironically it was from Frank Braun, whose gall overcame his pall of resentment about Jules.  I found out later Frank had commissioned Igor (Hollywood’s carpenter who built bookshelves) to build 20 bookcases on wheels with doors, so to move from his Beachwood address in the event of attack or invasion by the communists.  Some kids dumped boulders on Frank’s roof and Frank released the 20 cases down Beachwood Drive.  I never heard from him again.

Larry Mullen moved to Mexico.  Jules Manasseh moved his store up to the middle of Hollywood Boulevard some years later.  Doc Burroughs and Paul Hunt opened the Atlantis Bookshop on Hollywood Boulevard and after Doc’s death Paul moved to Burbank and re-opened the shop on the old Golden Mall where it flourished for many years.

The high shelves at the Universal Bookshop and its depth of stock was a delight to many a book reader.  Its passing was unmentioned like a Blanche DuBois typescript unremembered for want of a cast of characters.  In its Streetcar Named Desire was the beginning of a long journey into the book world of rarity and wonderment.  It was a fine community of Hollywood bookstores.  Those book stores now exist only on bookshelves in readers homes throughout the City.  Perhaps you have some copies in your home too, books from Hollywood’s lost book world, east of Vine.

Hollywood Boulevard Bookstore Follies – Part 4

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Bookstores on Hollywood Boulevard in 1976 – Continued

by Paul Hunt

Hollywood Book City

Hollywood Book City.  Photo by Wayne Braby

Walking to the next block, we now arrive at what can loosely be called the Cal Worthington of the used book business, HOLLYWOOD BOOK CITY.  This store has the largest stock of used and out-of-print books in Los Angeles, somewhere around a quarter of a million books if you care to count.  The store is co-owned by Alan Siegel and Jerry Weinstein.  And here we must pause and say a few words about Los Angeles’ first family of books, the Weinsteins.  They are to books what the Kennedys are to politics, there seems to be a never-ending supply of them.  As far as I can tell, each and every Weinstein is a bibliophile at birth, having both ink in the veins and a natural instinct for buying and selling books.

The Weinstein dynasty is particularly strong at this location, as Jerry’s sister is married to partner Siegel.

Now where were we?  Oh, yes, BOOK CITY.  The store has a large general stock of just about everything you can think of, including one of the largest sections of books on art and books on the arts, cinema, theater, graphic arts, architecture, television and radio history. The store is well laid out, with different sections clearly marked, and even an upstairs balcony to rummage through.  Book City seems to agree with my theory of constant expansion to avoid overcrowding.  It was not too long ago that a large hole was made through the west wall, adding on what is now mainly a section of new books at discount, and remainders.  Now it seems that the east wall is going to get the same treatment and on or about June 1st the book hunter will find a new doorway leading into the “scarce, rare and antiquarian department.”

Hollywood Book Shop bus cd

Walking on a few doors will bring you to HOLLYWOOD BOOK SHOP.  This store has been here about three years, although one of the owners has been in the book business in Hollywood about 10 years.  They carry a large general stock of used and out-of-print books. The partners, Jack Garvin and Ray Cantor are polar opposites, at times engaging in bitter quarrels.  Garvin, a stocky man who resembles Nikita Khrushchev, started as a book scout, operating out of a garage behind some storefronts on Adams Avenue, east of Western, a once rich area that has seen better days.  He is also into minerals and geology, and this specialty led him to buy equipment to cut geodes and polishing machinery to further enhance specimens that he buys.  Jack is a chain-smoking, gruff man to deal with, Ray the nicer of the two, but they have built up an excellent stock of books.

Recently they purchased a large warehouse stuffed with magazines and pamphlets.  The story behind this is an odd one.  There was a periodicals dealer down in the South Los Angeles area by the name of Nick Kovach, who was dealing in scholarly periodicals back in the 1950s.  When the Russians launched Sputnik, it was a big kick in the rear to the U.S. educational system, which all of a sudden woke up to the sad fact that this great country was falling behind in science and technology.  Kovach found himself to be center stage in the arena of scientific and mathematical periodicals, courted by libraries across the country who needed this material.  He bought and sold enormous quantities of paper goods and magazines, filling up many warehouses.  In later years he realized that the collections included a lot of non-scientific stuff that was of no use to the libraries at the great universities and corporations.  So Kovach started to dispose of tonnage of this stuff, which was mainly popular culture and mainstream magazines.

Along came a roving dealer named Mark Trout, who traveled around the country in a van, looking for this kind of material.  He “leased” the rights to an old, long closed-down bowling alley in South Los Angeles from Kovach  that was jam packed with just the right stuff that he wanted:  popular magazines, like Life, Time, Fortune, and the such.  Trout made a great amount of money over the years selling this at flea markets.  One time, at the Rose Bowl flea market, Trout showed up with a stack of over 50 Number 1 Life magazines in mint condition. The collectors went berserk.  After milking the contents of the bowling alley for a number of years, Trout offered to transfer the “lease” to Jack Garvin and his partner.  All the great popular magazines had been removed and sold by Trout, but the place was still jammed with pamphlets, ephemera and lesser-known periodicals.  Garvin pulled out van loads of great stuff, including a world-class collection of pamphlets and rare broadsides on the subject of American radicalism, which he is selling to libraries at big prices. Garvin and Canter go down to their bowling alley once a week and pack their old van full of paper goodies and rare ephemera.  “It’s like owning a gold mine,” Jack once told me.  “Every once in a while we hit a particularly good vein!”  And it is enough material for years to come.

Cherokee Book Shop

Cherokee Book Shop.  Photo by Wayne Braby

A couple of doors further we arrive at one of the finest book shops in the world.  CHEROKEE BOOK SHOP. Established about 25 years ago, it has a large selection of Americana, occult, fine bindings, first editions, fine illustrated books, military history, and so on without end.  Upstairs is the famous comic room with 200,000 comics.  They also now have about 20,000 old Playboy Magazines.  Browsing through the store I noticed a couple of interesting items in a glass case near the counter.  One was a large folio Bible printed in London in 1683.  I’m not much for buying and collecting old bibles, but this one was quite unusual.  I am not referring to the fact that it is bound in a rich, glistening morocco, or that the morocco is covering heavy oak boards.  It is the fore-edge painting that attracts attention, mainly because it is an “open” painting, clearly visible where the book is lying on the table.

Inside Cherokee Book Shop. Photo by Wayne Braby

Inside Cherokee Book Shop. Photo by Wayne Braby

Another interesting item (among thousands) is a limited edition of “The Life of Our Lord,” by Charles Dickens, published by Merrymount Press in 1934.  This also is in full red morocco..  Laid in the front inside cover is a cancelled check that Dickens made out to “self” for five pounds, not a small sum when you glance at the date August 27, 1864.  One can’t help wondering what that illustrious gentleman spent  the money on:  was it something special or just enough to cover some day-to-day expenses?  Curious as we are, we will never know.  Also to be found inside this volume, placed loose between two pages, is an old invitation to a dinner on November 2, 1867, in honor of Dickens’ “forthcoming” departure on a trip to the U.S.  The banquet took place at Freemason’s Hall, Great Queen Street, London.  Ahh, if we only had a time machine, we could put that invitation to good use.  And don’t forget to take along some items for Mr. Dickens to sign, maybe even the Merrymount edition of “The Life of  Our Lord.”  Now that would be a rarity, having a signed edition of a book that was printed sixty-five years after the author’s death. Since we don’t yet have a time machine, if you see a copy, be advised that it is either a “spirit signature” or a forgery.

Atlantis Books. Photo by Wayne Braby

Atlantis Books. Photo by Wayne Braby

Leaving Cherokee, we go down the  Boulevard a couple of blocks to ATLANTIS BOOKS.  This is one of those secret bookstores, one that you have probably walked past and never seen because it sits well back from the Boulevard, tightly packed into the rear of an alcove.  Even if you have the exact address you may miss it, so I’m going to give you two important landmarks.  The first is Mr. Howland’s miniature jewelry store and watch repair stand, which sits at the front of the alcove.  The second landmark is to watch the names of the stars embedded in the famous sidewalk.  When you see the name “Rochester” (Legs, do yo’ stuff!) you will be there.

The store itself is deceptively large, but not large enough for the seventy thousand volumes nestled into every nook and cranny (no lie, the store actually does have little nooks and crannies.)  Sometimes the new arrivals are piled so high on the counter that the only thing visible of the owner is an occasional puff of smoke from his pipe that drifts over the top of the stacks, lazily floating up toward the ceiling.  You know right away that this is your kind of store.

More often than not, there is a book scout leaning on the front counter, trying to sell some books to owner “Doc” Burroughs.  One can always tell how tough is the haggling over price by the amount of cigarette butts the fearless scout has deposited in the ashtray. Dr. Burroughs always wears a suit and tie, not to be flashy, but he is a Veterinarian who makes house calls only, he does not have a clinic.  In between the stops to treat sick dogs and cats, he stops at thrift stores, estate sales, and other bookstores to pick up some good inventory.  His Volkswagen station wagon is always piled with coolers full of medicine for the animals, surrounded by boxes of books, filling up the rest of the space.  It’s a winning combination because even if book sales are slow, sick animals abound, so the rent will always get paid.

The real fun at Atlantis is to slip towards the back aisles and dig around in, say, the Russian History section, or root through one of L.A.’s best World War 2 collections.  On the way out (or in), don’t forget to check out the three bargain carts that are dutifully wheeled out into the alcove each day.

Marlow's Bookshop. Photo by Wayne Braby

Marlow’s Bookshop. Photo by Wayne Braby

Leaving Atlantis, walk up to Argyle and cross the street to the south side of Hollywood and work your way back.  The first stop is right on the corner of Hollywood and Argyle,  MARLOW’S BOOKSHOP.  Owned by -you guessed it – a gentleman named Marlow, this store has been open about five years. It has a general stock of used books, but specializes in back issue periodicals and in research (mainly for the film industry).  A graduate engineer before he got into the book business, Marlow said he recently got a call from the filmmakers of All The President’s Men.  They needed to duplicate the library of The Washington Post for some of the scenes, so  Marlow rented them an entire set-up of 10,000 books.  It was a rush job , he put it together overnight so the film company could start shooting the scene the next day!

Notice the 50% off sign in the window.  This came about when Marlow had stopped over to Hollywood Book City.  While chatting with Book City owner Alan Siegel, he complained that business was a little slow.  “Why don’t you have a sale?” said Alan, “It’l bring in some new business.”  Marlow said he would try it, but didn’t know how to start.  Alan generously loaned Marlow a beautiful large banner that said “Anniversary Sale, 50% Off”.  Marlow borrowed the banner and put it up on his shop (not shown in the photo).  It worked so well that he kept the banner up there permanently, and refused to give it back to Alan. “That damned banner cost me over a $100,” said Siegel.  “No good deed goes unpunished on this street” he said sadly. To make matters worse, a couple of Marlow’s customers claim that he doubled the price on most items in order not to sell too cheaply.  I can only say that these are at the moment unsubstantiated and unproven claims, but certainly in the realm of bookstore lore.

Universal Book Store. Photo by Wayne Braby

Universal Book Store. Photo by Wayne Braby

A few doors west is UNIVERSAL BOOKS.  This store has been in business for about 10 years.  The present owner is a former insurance agent who got into the book business “because of the easy pace and the interesting people.”  Universal carries a general stock, specializing in first editions, rare and scarce books and occult.

universal-books

“I really like book people,” says the owner Jules Manasseh,, “but once in a while you get a nut in.  Like once a guy came in and went back to the shelves and started looking around.  Before long he starts goose-stepping around the store yelling ‘Sieg Heil’ and giving the Nazi salute.  I had to ask him to leave, he was bothering the customers.  Then, a couple of weeks later he came back in, tried to sneak past me wearing one of those pair of phony glasses with the big nose attached.  I guess he thought I wouldn’t recognize him.  I threw him out again.  He was a real nut.”  Well, that’s Hollywood, folks!

Gilberts Book Shop. Photo by Wayne Braby

Gilberts Book Shop. Photo by Wayne Braby

Next is GILBERT’S BOOK SHOP, the oldest book store in Hollywood.  It has been there since 1928 (although not with the same name), it was formerly The Satyr Book Store and began life actually around the corner on Vine Street.  They carry new and used books, mainly in the fields of metaphysics and astrology, and also push best-seller novels, first editions and fine sets.  You can also buy old movie lobby cards for $1.00 each on a bargain table near the door.  During World War II Henry Miller used to receive his mail here. Mr. Gilbert, the owner, is married to one of the daughters of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Don’t even think about finding any rare Tarzan books, Mr. Gilbert keeps them all at his house.

Proceeding west to Cahuenga and then taking a few steps south to 1952, you will find WORLD BOOK AND NEWS, a 24-hour newsstand.  The large display room also offers magazines and pocketbooks, with a generous selection of the latest comics stretching along the outside wall of the building.

A block away at 1638 N. Wilcox is BOND STREET BOOKS.  Owners Steve Edrington and Jim McDonald maintain a large stock of used and back issue comics, back issue magazines, and a good selection of movie stills and posters.  They’ve been in business here eight years and their crowded store contains lots of goodies.

Hollywood Book Service invoice. Collection of Paul Hunt

Hollywood Book Service invoice. Collection of Paul Hunt

HOLLYWOOD BOOK SERVICE  is also just south of the Boulevard, at 1654 Cherokee Ave.  The owner, Helen Hall, is the only woman bookstore owner in the Hollywood Boulevard area.  She started as a book scout but found that she had accumulated so many books that she had to open a store, which was in 1965.  With over 20,000 books, Ms Hall specializes in searching for out of print books, movie stills, posters, and magazines, used encyclopedias and sets of The Great Books of the Western World. There is a good stock of autographed movie stills, including George Raft, Cagney, Errol Flynn, Bette Davis, and Edward G. Robinson.

Ms. Hall fondly recalled one of the most pleasant moments in her career as a bookseller.  She had once bought some books from a private school library, and as she was leaving the librarian gave her, free of charge, about 30 bound volumes of Railroad magazine  She took them back and set them on the floor of her shop, near the door, and the next day a customer walked in and purchased them for $250.  Now, if you could only have a windfall like that every day!

Larry Edmunds Book Store. Photo by Wayne Braby

Larry Edmunds Book Store. Photo by Wayne Braby

Back on the Boulevard again, we go into LARRY EDMUNDS BOOKSHOP.  This has the world’s largest collection of books and memorabilia on cinema.  Larry Edmunds died about 1941.  He had originally worked for the Stanley Rose Bookstore, but left Rose and went into partnership with Milt Luboviski, the present owner.

larry-edmunds-2

For you bookstore history buffs, Stanley Rose’s shop was across the street from present day Edmunds, in what is now a part of Musso & Frank’s Grill.  At the time, the 1930s, Rose was known as one of the most flamboyant of the Los Angeles booksellers.  He was a friend of the famous: Cagney, Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe were among his friends.  Rose was known to carry his satchel of fine books around town to personally show them (and sell them) to his high rolling customers, the movie producers, directors and stars.  He was also known to spend a lot of time at Musso’s, where he held court daily, as the expression goes.  Rose died after the war.

Larry Edmunds Book Store. Photo by Wayne Braby

Larry Edmunds Book Store. Photo by Wayne Braby

But back to Edmunds.  The shop has over one million items, including antique cameras and movie paraphernalia.  It is here that you will find the literature of the cinema:  books, biographies, sheet music, scripts, magazines, posters, press books, lobby cards, and so on.  A nice place to spend the summer!

Our last two stops are both on a side street, Las Palmas, a few steps south of Hollywood Boulevard.  The first is UNIVERSAL NEWS, another 24 hour newsstand.  They stock everything fro current magazines to out of town newspapers.  If they ain’t got it you’re in trouble!  A lot of Hollywood industry people stop here to pick up the latest copy of Hollywood Reporter, or the Racing Form.

Baroque Book Store. Photo by Wayne Braby

Baroque Book Store. Photo by Wayne Braby

Lastly, we come to BAROQUE BOOK STORE, which almost adjoins Universal News.  Owner Sholom “Red” Stodolsky specializes in modern literature, literary criticism, music theater, film, poetry and first editions.  You can get an added thrill to that exciting out-of-print tome you find by reading it while strapped into the electric chair that sits in the middle of the store.  Don’t worry about the volts, it’s only a make-believe mock-up from a movie set. (Who said that book dealers are eccentric?)

Now that you have the list, the only thing left to tell you is “Happy Hunting”, and I hope you are fortunate enough to have a bank account much larger than mine!

 

 

Hollywood Boulevard Bookseller Follies

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Whatever Happened to “Frugalius Maximus”?

by Paul Hunt

Pickwick now a souvenier shop

Pickwick now a souvenir shop

Jim Hubler is quite a character.  He owned Partridge Book Store in Hollywood for years. This was right next door east of the big Pickwick Book Shop, which was probably world famous at that time, 1970’s through the early 1980s.  Jim had a simple strategy for success: his shop was next door to Pickwick, and he existed by a parasitic relationship, he being the parasite.  As I remember, Jim worked in the store as a young man, and when the owner passed, his widow sold the store to Jim, who made payments on it until he owned it. Jim told me that Mr. Partridge, a graduate of UCLA, made a lot of money in the parking lot business in San Francisco, before he got into the book business.

The shop was unusual in many ways.  First were the hours of operation.  No 9 to 5 here, he adjusted his hours to take full advantage of his colossal neighbor, and would usually show up around 4pm, to the cheers of a waiting group of book scouts and customers.  The trick was that he stayed open really late, usually until past midnight, often until 1am.  When Pickwick closed at 10pm a big mob of customers flooded right into Jim’s place.  It was amazing to see this, but that makes perfect sense, since many book lovers are night owls, and where else, even in old Hollywood, could you go to a bookstore that was open that late.  Partridge became a meeting place for all kinds of characters and Jim raked in the cash, making most of his money from 10pm to 1am, when all the other book dealers were sleeping.

A Strange Way to Organize a Bookshop

Another weird thing about Partridge was the way the books were organized, something that I have never seen anywhere else. Jim organized the books by Publisher!  Although he did have used books and a lot of remainders, most of his stock was new.  By organizing by Publisher it was really easy for Jim to check on stock for reorder.  This was long before computers, and Partridge was a one-man act, and he had quite an array of fascinating old shelves and racks.  I still remember the Modern Library rack, packed with all those wonderful little books that are now considered worthy of collecting.  Jim had a great knowledge base in his head and anyone asking for a book would be pointed to the correct publisher’s shelf.  I was reading a lot of science fiction back then, and the Ballentine paperback rack was one of my favorites.  Balllentine also published a great series on World War 2, with a lot of “original” first editions that are still collected today, some 50 years later. It was also the time that Ballentine was publishing the now legendary “Unicorn” fantasy series. The Publishers, by the  way, loved this system, it was an immense ego boost for them to have their own rack in the middle of Hollywood, sort of a showcase for them.

Jim stocked a lot of remainders in order to cater to the Pickwick crowd.  As anyone who ever went into that great store would remember that the ground floor was new books, the small mezzanine  had something or other that I can’t remember, but the top floor was packed with remainders, many from England.  It was overwhelming and so tempting to just spend  your entire paycheck on them.  Jim realized what a big draw Pickwick’s top floor was, so he created a mini-remainder area in his shop.

Another funny thing about Jim, but not so funny for the frustrated publishers, was how he turned book club editions into cash.  He would buy massive quantities of clean Book-of-the-month club editions from book scouts.  As long as they were clean, with nice dust jackets, Jim would pay 50 cents or $1.00 for them.  At first I was puzzled about this, but I was just starting out as a book scout, and I was trained not to pick up book club editions because collectors wanted the first editions.  Sometimes it was hard to tell, because used bookstore owners would “clip” the corner of the dust jacket so it looked like it once had a price on it, so you spent a lot of time flipping over the back of the dust jacket to look for the little dot on the back of the binding which would indicate a Book of the Month edition.

Introducing “R.E.Turner”

Jim’s nick-name was “R.E. Turner”.  He got this because when he sent back returns to the publishers he would include mounds of Book of the Month editions.  I was in the shop once when one of the angry publisher’s reps was trying to lecture Jim that this was not acceptable to the publisher, and they weren’t going to give him credit for the book clubs. Jim told him that they had better give him credit or else.  The rep didn’t want to lose this good account and was pleading with Jim that in some cases he was actually returning more copies than he originally ordered.  “Stop crying about it to me,” Jim said, “you guys make tons of money, just send them out as remainders to someone else.”  Mr. R.E. Turner had spoken.

The Saga of Louis Epstein

Jim had a long run at Partridge, until fate smiled at him, and boy, did he smile back.  Here’s what happened to the best of my recollection:  Old man Louis Epstein was the owner of the mighty Pickwick Book Shop, the central fixture in the galaxy of book stores that were in Hollywood at that time.  Epstein had started out in downtown Los Angeles in the really old days of the 1930’s, in a little shop near the original Dawson;s Book Shop, around Wilshire and Figuroa.  He bought the shop from another old bookseller, who gave him a piece of advice:  “Never pay more than 10 cents for any used book and you will make a profit.”  That wasn’t much money in the 1930s, but things have gotten worse now, with amazon.com selling books for a penny. Who would have known?  But the formula worked for years, both for Louie and his brother, who worked at another used book shop called Bennett and Marshall.  As a side note, when Louie’s brother was in his 80s, he was still scouting for rare books.  He was a tall, stately man, and I remember seeing him at estate sales in the 1980s.  He would charge into the sale waving his stout wooden cane around and bellowing at the top of his voice “Clear the way, Bennett and Marshall coming through for the books.”  Bennett and Marshall, once eminent rare book dealers, had pretty much faded by the 1980s, and were under new ownership for a while, and then disappeared entirely from their retail store in West Hollywood.  But hey, the bellowing and the wooden cane searing through the air were enough to clear the way for Louie’s brother and scare off the competition. By that time, nobody knew who the hell Bennett and Marshall were, but it was a good idea not to rile the tall old man, whoever he was.

Epstein dealt in literature and poetry, but was having a hard time of it, all the while seeing his neighbor Ernest Dawson doing a pretty good business with a lot of the L.A. trade passing through his doors.  Then fortune smiled on Louie.  A movie studio came in and wanted to rent 5,000 books.  When pressed for a rental amount, he blurted out 5 cents a day per book.  The studio folks were happy with that, and Epstein wrote up a rental document, which was to last for 30 days.  Time passed, and the books never returned. Epstein called a few times but was given the run-around.  About a year later a truck pulled up in front of his shop and dropped off the 5,000 books that had been used by the studio as set props. The studio sent him a check for the rental for 30 days.  After some phone calls, protesting that they owed him $250. per day for 365 days, the studios said “no way, we only needed them for 30 days.  Sorry that we forgot to send them back on time, go pound sand.”  Louie phoned his lawyer instead.  The attorney extracted the full amount from the Studio, a very substantial figure. Their lax business practice cost them nearly $100,000, big money in the 1940s.  When Louie called his attorney to collect the money, his lawyer refused to give it to him.  “If I give you this money, you’ll just spend it foolishly buying more books and having a good time.  So here’s the deal:  you go find a building to buy and I will release the money into escrow, that way at least you will have your own store.”  And that is how Louis Epstein ended up owning the building on Hollywood Blvd. that became the mighty Pickwick Bookshop.

Artisan's Patio today

Artisan’s Patio today

Epstein expanded Pickwick and in the 1970s opened shops in malls around Southern California.  He also bought the Artisan’s Patio for one of his sons to run.  This was a long, quaint alleyway to the east of Partridge, which is still in operation, filled with small business and craft shops. In the early 1970s it was the home to bookseller Fred Dorsett.  Pickwick’s expansion attracted the attention of B. Dalton, who was moving into the area, and wanted to add Pickwick to their chain.  Around the time B. Dalton took over Pickwick they decided to buy the property next door, which included the shop that Jim was operating out of.  When Jim got word that the building was for sale he went right to the landlord and bought it.  This was a master-stroke of business acumen, and in a short time, I believe it was only a couple years, he flipped it for a nice profit.  Jim closed his shop around 1976, actually selling the book shop to a guy who ran it into the ground in short order.  He then sold the building and retired. He was 42, and he began a new life of travel and uber frugality and “dumpster dipping” as he calls it.

B. Dalton’s Colossal Mistake

B.Dalton then made another colossal mistake.  They started changing Pickwick, in fact they ruined it, driving away most of the customers.  It was crazy, they took out the entire second floor of remainders and converted it to office space. In contrast, Epstein’s entire office was a desk in the middle of the first floor.  They also did not carry the eclectic mix that Epstein had so painstakingly built up over the years: books from small publishers, beautiful remainders from England, odd stuff that no one else had.  Epstein was a master bookseller.  He came up the hard way, and knew more in his little finger than B. Dalton’s entire army of executives.  They quickly ran his empire into the ground.  Old Epstein made a huge pile of money from the sale, enough to carry him and family for the rest of eternity if need be.

Frugalius Maximus Knew How To Cut Expenses

Jim was a clever investor, and made enough income to live, although he was frugal to the bone.  In all the years in his shop, he never had the usual “letterheads”, “invoices”, etc.  Business cards maybe, although I don’t have one in my possession. He would start screaming at the very idea of spending any money on such nonsense as office stationary.  A rubber stamp and some old envelopes, using the back side for notes and correspondence to the publishers.  “There’s plenty of paper around, just look through the dumpsters and you’ll find huge amounts you can use,” was his advice to aspiring book-sellers.

It was “Captain” Jack LeVan who gave Jim the nick-name “Frugalius Maximus“.  Jack Levan (died Jan 1, 2020) owned a book shop in Inglewood, Vajra Bookshop, that he kept open for some unknown reason, certainly not for that of income accumulation, as book buyers are scarce in that corner of Los Angeles. Additionally, his partner was a Tibetan silversmith, another odd twist, as the Tibetan book pricing system was something that startled many residents of the Inglewood area.  Nonetheless, Jack was the man who knew some of the truly world-class Jim Hubler frugality stories, like the Big Potato Heist.

The Big Potato Heist

Jim, for years living in a little cottage-like apartment in Santa Monica, which is actually the remaining half of an old motel wedged in between the modern condo behemoths that line the street,  had a daily routine.  Every morning he went for a walk and used the exercise to root through the hundreds of bins lining the alleys. Once in a while, carefully sifting some ephemera, he would hit a little jackpot.  One day, he found a nice coupon in the dumpster.  It was for 10 pounds of potatoes for 99 cents.  A good start anyway.  The coupon was good at a local independent market not far from Jim’s cruising range, so he dropped in during the busiest time of day.  This particular store was trying to lure in new customers by claiming a short wait time in the checkout line.  A sign was posted that if you waited in line more than three minutes they would give you a dollar.  Jim smiled his wicked smile.  This was like taking candy from a baby.  He grabbed the bag of potatoes and got in line, and then kept slithering backwards to the end of the line, until around three minutes had passed, some amount of time, but who was really keeping track anyway?

He then stormed up to the manager and said he had waited in line over three minutes and demanded the dollar.  The manager gave him a chit for the buck, and when he got to the checkout, he handed the chit to the cashier, along with the coupon for the 10 pounds of potatoes for 99 cents, and waited patiently while the clerk figured it all out, and handed him back a penny change, which Jim gratefully accepted.  Hah!  There were enough potatoes in the bag to last almost a month, and he gleefully recounted that the store had paid him a penny to take away 10 pounds of the big bombers.  There were about 20 potatoes in the bag, which meant that each one that he baked and ate cost him .0005 of a cent.  Now that’s frugal!

The Ex-Lax Bonanza

On another alley cruising day, Jim hit an unusual bonanza.  A bin with several packages of Ex-Lax laxative.  One of the packages was opened, but the others were sealed.  In with the packages was the receipt.  Someone, nobody knows who, was so constipated that he or she had grabbed a half-year’s supply of those yummy little chocolates.  Jim quickly realized that this could be quite a business opportunity for him.  He had no personal need for the laxative, he is mainly a vegetarian, thin as a rail, the only thing protruding is a thick walrus mustache.  Jim did his due diligence and research before making his move. He noticed that the package had a “money back” guarantee printed on it, promising a full refund “if not satisfied”.  Something like “no go….no pay.”

Jim checked all the local drug stores, and came across a price disparity.  The price that was printed on the receipt was a lower price than what some of the other stores in the same chain had on the product.  Jim quickly realized the arbitrage potential.  He carefully took one packet at a time back to one of the high priced drug emporiums, and received a full refund.  This became a big bonanza for Jim, because not only did he sell back the packets of Ex-Lax that he had found in the dumpster, but he began buying more packets at the low-priced store and selling them for refunds at the higher priced stores, the arbitrage being over a dollar a packet.  This went on for weeks until  the drug chain stabilized the prices.  They were also getting suspicious of this lanky old guy who would come in once or twice a week to return an Ex-Lax packet. “Why does this stupid old man keep buying Ex-Lax if the stuff doesn’t work?” they thought. Never in a thousand years did they ever dream they were being sharked by a brilliant business entrepreneur, one with too much time on his hands, but eager for even a small victory over one of the world’s largest drug pushers.

Don’t Bother With The Door Bell

Captain Jack and I would stop over to see Jim once in a while. The front of his cottage is packed with hundreds of small pots of cactus he has accumulated.  Jim was living cheap, for years he didn’t even have a phone.  Or a working doorbell.  No problem.  Jack explained that if one went to the door and knocked, Jim would not answer, suspicious of anyone who would approach after dark.  Jack knew Jim better than anyone on earth.  He had a simple way of attracting Jim’s attention.  Jack went to the front porch, took a quarter out of his pocket, and dropped it on the porch.  The sound of the 25 cent piece hitting the cement brought an immediate response, and Jim peered through the curtains to see who was dropping coin on his porch.  Jack told me later that in past times he  used a dime, but Jim’s hearing was not as good as it used to be, so Jack had to upgrade to a quarter, which made a louder noise as it hit the pavement.

The Second Refrigerator

Our pleasant conversations with Jim, who is opinionated to the max about everything, are certainly entertaining.  Recently we stopped by to see how he was doing. He is hobbling around with a walker due to a hip operation.  The big change is in the living room, where Jim has wedged in a second refrigerator that he got from someone who was evicted from one of the nearby units. Who says refrigerators have to be in the kitchen?  They can be anywhere you need them.  Having a second refrigerator can be a big plus in a small apartment, somewhere to stash a lot of odds and ends that somehow pop out of nowhere. Things you don’t really need, but are worth saving in case you might need them someday, so it’s nice to have a catch-all to keep them in, plus the flat top is great for pilling boxes and old copies of the L.A. Times.  Looking inside revealed some interesting items.  It’s packed with stuff, so upon opening the door a couple things fell out, one being an old tin sign that was advertising a restaurant – gas station off the old Highway 99.  It said something like “Eat Here and Get Gas.”

Peering in, I was fascinated to see two interesting looking mousetraps, a bag of hot chocolate mix, another bag containing some vintage rice, various cans of cleaners like End Dust, and a big old jar of “Flower of Sulpher”.  “That came from a guy who was an old pharmacist”, Jim cheerfully explained.  Jim abruptly shut the refer door on me, “OK, show’s over, I’m going to sleep.”  It was after 2 a.m.  We had been talking for over 3 hours.

As I drove Captain Jack back to his place in Inglewood, we reviewed the night’s conversation.  It was a challenge to follow Jim sometimes, because he goes off on so many tangents.  He might be talking about old Hollywood booksellers one minute, then all of a sudden he’s telling you about his trip to Africa, sleeping in his car off-road to save money, instead of staying in ritzy hotels.  It’s cool to be frugal.  But after having lived in a van for several years, a high-priced luxury hotel with a big screen TV and a hot shower sounds pretty good to me.