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The Mysterious Disappearance of Libraries and Museums in Southern California

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The Mayme Clayton African-American Library Vanished Without a Trace. A Victim of Despicable L.A. Politics

First Part in a Series
by Paul Hunt

Mayme Clayton with her beloved books

Mayme A. Clayton with her beloved books.

Mayme Agnew Clayton was an African-American woman born in Arkansas on August 4, 1923. At the age of 13 she started collecting books on the history and literature of Blacks in America. She ended up with a collection of about 2 million items and a Library and Museum in Culver City, California. It was a long, tough road for her, but she was incredibly focused and resilient. She died as her Library was opened, but her sons stepped up to fill the void, until mid-2019 when the entire Library and Museum vanished in the midst of the turmoil of L.A.’s rotten politics, heroic patrons, and a shameful Board of Supervisors. Like the fog of war and forgotten battles, piecing together the fragments of the dramatic drive to create a lasting Library for African-American studies has not been easy.

Mayme Clayton was an incredibly busy woman. She raised three sons, worked as a librarian, was involved in golf tournaments, and in every spare moment was out and about searching for books on the literature and history of African-Americans. One of her big collections came from a bookstore we have written about several times on this blog, Universal Books.
Sifting through the few scraps of history of bookstore archives and the fading memories of the last remaining booksellers, the story is both dramatic and inspiring.

Photo by Wayne Braby.

Universal Books came to life on February 25, 1966. The store was founded by Jerry Weinstein and his brother Bob, both of whom had spectacular careers in bookselling in the following decades. The store was a small shop located just east of Vine on the South side of Hollywood Blvd, at 6258. Don’t bother looking around for the location, most of that block was demolished and huge structures now occupy what was once a group of small shops, a hot dog stand, and the wild, dangerous bar called the Crazy Horse.

Bob and Jerry struggled to get the shop going, buying books, putting up shelves and obtaining second-hand fixtures. Money was scarce. The Weinsteins, five brothers, had been running a junk shop opened by their father in South L.A. when they discovered that they could do better with books than all the other stuff. Some of the older booksellers, like Peter Howard encouraged them to focus on second-hand books, and the brothers
went full boar into selling books, along with a sister and the wives, creating a dynasty of book shops in Southern California. It’s a story in itself, full of drama, disasters, and huge success and wealth, but that will have to be written by one of the surviving members some day.

Bob Weinstein lasted about six months at Universal Books. Sales were slow, the shop was on the eastern edge of Hollywood Blvd., a ways from the action near Pickwick Book Shop and the cluster of book stores dotting the street just east of Highland Ave. Bob’s wife got pregnant, and Bob had to bail on the book store and go back to a mainstream job for a while. Jerry fished around for a new partner and found Larry Mullen, a fellow poker player at one of the clubs in Gardena. Jerry introduced Larry to the book business and made him an offer: “Work here at the shop for $100 per week for one year and I’ll make you a partner.” Larry agreed, and his education began as a book dealer.

The story of how Jerry Weinstein stumbled into the African-American book world involves some tragic circumstances, as was related to me by Larry Mullen many decades ago. Here it is, as I remember it: One day a gentlemen pulled up in front of Universal Books with his car jam packed with books. He said he was a landlord of a small bungalow in Venice that he had rented to two guys, one a beatnik and the other a musician. The 1960s were the trailing end of the beatnik days in Southern California, although Venice was a haven, and the influence in many ways is still evident in local libraries, crumbling buildings, poetry and vibes.

The landlord said that the beatnik guy, who collected all the books that he had in the car, had been busted for possession of pot, a somewhat serious offense back in those days. He was sent to jail for some time, and the musician, mostly unemployed, couldn’t pay the rent by himself so he took off for parts unknown. The Landlord gathered up all the books and pamphlets and loaded his car, hoping to sell the books and recoup lost rent. Jerry rummaged through the load, and was not immediately impressed. The books, many old and scarce, were all on Black history and literature, some going back to slave days. He was not familiar with the subject, but one thing about Jerry, he had instinct for books. He also knew that the Landlord had been trying to flog the books all over Hollywood, and Universal Books, sitting just east of Vine, was the last stop. East of Argyle was mostly desolate land in a literary sense. He was Mr. Landlord’s last chance.

So Jerry made the guy an offer, not based on the value of the books, which he did not even know at the time, but based on how much money was in his pocket at the moment, the cash drawer and bank account being drained by the Gardena card parlors. I don’t know what he paid for it, but let’s just say it was one of Jerry’s most spectacular buys. The frustrated Landlord was probably glad to get a few hundred bucks out of the deal, the economy slow, and he was also getting rid of a load of debris from the house. My thoughts at the time were to not only get the books but go back to the house and see what remained of rare pamphlets, documents, broadsides and miscellaneous strewn about. Hearing this story left an impression on me, I did exactly that several times in years to come, even telling landlords I would sweep up the debris “broom clean” if I could have the remaining items.

Jerry started to work on the book collection right away, getting together a catalog that was called “The Negro in America and Africa, a Choice Collection of Books by or about the Black Man.” The catalog was labeled “Black Literature Catalog #121.” I have a copy of this now rare catalog, and wondered if this was the first catalog Jerry put out or did he really have 120 earlier ones? According to Bob Weinstein, Jerry just picked a number, it was actually his first catalog, but Jerry wanted the librarians to think that he had been in business for some time and was not a novice.

 

The catalog was wonderful in content. Although just typewritten and offset printed as a pamphlet, many of the items dated back to the nineteenth century and some to Civil War and early times. The prices, with today’s perspective, were very reasonable. If I can figure out how to do it, I would like to make it into a .pdf for folks to use as reference.
Needless to say, the catalog was a smashing success and mostly sold out. The timing was perfect, universities across America were just beginning to establish ethnic studies programs, and it was important to have reference works to back them up.

With money coming in and orders piling up, Jerry went on the road, looking to find duplicates to fill orders and to scoop up any of the black literature and history he could find. As I have written about before, during the LBJ’s Urban Renewal program in the large cities across the country, many thousands of old buildings were torn down, many of these being the home of old established used book stores, usually in lower rent districts. The late 1960s and early 1970s saw major used book stores closing down forever, and liquidating their stock of books at bargain prices. Jerry hit many of these stores and shipped back his book purchases to Universal so Larry could send them out to waiting customers.

Meanwhile, Mayme Clayton was gathering books. She was in and out of many of the Hollywood Bookstores in the late 1960s, including Universal, and she most likely purchased a number of books from Jerry and Larry. In November of 1969 the L.A. Free University hosted Clayton “of the UCLA Law Library” to give a talk. Around 1970 UCLA asked her to assemble a collection of books on African-American literature and history. Funds were lacking to buy any sort of rare items and they were at least keen to buy some of the new books being published at the time. In the Summer of 1971 UCLA sent Mayme Clayton to Africa to look for books in Libraries there on the subject of African-American interest. She found very little in the countries she went to, and said that those books were almost non-existent in the libraries of African nations.

In the fall of 1971 she returned to Los Angeles and took a job working at Universal Books for $2 an hour. She had realized that although being a librarian was a good solid job, her real goal was to assemble a world class collection, a Library and Museum that would tell the story of Black people in America. She decided that Universal Books was at the time the leading book shop in the West Coast that was cataloging and selling books on Black subjects, so she decided to learn the ropes so she could open her own shop or Library some day.

The situation at Universal Books at that time was full of chaos and drama, as usual. Jerry and Larry had both been playing way too much at the Gardena Poker Clubs. Larry told me that they finally both realized that they had to pay attention to the business, so they made a deal. They would both quit gambling and devote themselves to be successful booksellers. If either party was caught gambling, he would have to sell the business to the other partner. Jerry got caught and had to sell the store to Larry Mullen. Larry, short of capital, took in a partner named Ed Withrow, a customer of the shop, well-to-do, and a collector of art books.

I met Ed Withrow in 1979 when I opened my shop in West Hollywood, the Paperback Jack Book Store. Ed was a good customer, a gentle man and very knowledgeable about books. We both knew Larry and Ed told me about his experience as a partner at Universal that lasted about a year. Ed was disappointed in the partnership and with Larry, and asked to be bought out. Larry scrambled around and brought in Jules Manasseh in 1972. Ed Winthrop was tragically murdered around 1980. He had owned some apartments and was refurbishing one of the units and went to work on the unit one night, evidently surprising some gang bangers who had broken in to steal his tools. Another shocking, senseless murder, all too common in the crime-ridden streets of Los Angeles.

By 1972, not only was Mayme Clayton working at Universal part time, evidently using the name “Mae Phillips” to protect her job as a librarian, but also working there were Mark Sailor and Melvin Guptin. Mark wrote a wonderful story about his experiences at Universal, published here at BookstoreMemories.com. I’ll put the link to it down at the end of this story. He called it the Lost Book World East of Vine. Mark Sailor was also involved with cataloging the Black Americana that the store continued to specialize in.

On December 4, 1973, the L.A. Times ran an article about Mayme Clayton, who had opened a bookstore in her remodeled garage behind her house at 3617 Montclair, South Los Angeles. The shop, called Third World Ethnic Bookstore, stocked over 3,000 volumes.

In 1974, Mayme put up the money to become a partner with Jules Manasseh, who had bought out Larry Mullen. The partnership didn’t last long, only a few months. She claimed the owner “lost profits at the horse races”, and that on one especially bad day lost all the business money. She ended the partnership, and took all the stock of books on African-American history, approximately 4,000 volumes, as settlement. Universal Books was pretty much out of the arena of books on Black History.

1975 was a busy year for Mayme Clayton. She was appointed to the staff of the DOVES Project, Dedicated Older Volunteers in Educational Services. She recruited seniors to volunteer to help at the local Watts elementary, junior and high schools.

In November of 1975 she changed the name of her bookstore to The Western Black Research Center. A newspaper article stated that Clayton would give tours of her library on Saturdays between Noon and 1pm. She also in the late 1970s and early 1980s was instrumental in putting on Celebrity Golf tournaments for African-American golfers.

By 1999 Mayme hosted a day long African-American Film Festival at Cal State Northridge. The films were from her collection at the Western Black Research Center. She had continued over the years to produce film festivals and lectures on African-American history and literature, and had purchased archives of photographs from failed magazines and newspapers, and expanded her collection at her garage until it was packed. The publicity she generated along the way finally led to a breakthrough in Culver City when a lease was signed in 2006 to open a Library and Museum at the old Courthouse at 4130 Overland Avenue, Culver City.

Her dream partially realized, sadly Mayme Clayton died on October 13, 2006.

Mayme painted by her son Avery Clayton

Mayme’s son Avery Clayton took over the job of building out the Library. In 2007 he changed the name from Western Black Research Center to The Mayme A. Clayton Library and Museum (MCLM). Yvonne Braithwaite Burke, Supervisor of the Second District, leased the old Courthouse to the MCLM for one dollar a year. The property in older times had been owned by Culver City, and the Council and Mayor were behind the Library and celebrated that Clayton’s Collection, which had grown from 3,000 items to around 2 million items, was going to be the largest African-American collection in the Western United States. It put Culver City on the Cultural map, along with the movie studios and art galleries.

Avery Clayton

Avery Clayton was busy with the Library. In January 2009 he loaned the Huntington Library in San Marino, one of the most prestigious Libraries in the World, a group of items from the Clayton collection for a display called “Central Avenue and Beyond. The Harlem Renaissance in Los Angeles.” The Museum was attracting a lot of attention. A local photographer and book collector named Mosiah Kennard introduced renowned L.A. bookseller and filmmaker Arnold Herr to Avery Clayton. Arnold was hired to make a documentary about the MCLM, which he did. It was an excellent film, and was shown at the Museum, but has since vanished, possibly still in the MCLM archives, wherever that is.

On Thanksgiving Day 2009 Avery Clayton died at his home in Culver City. He was too young and his untimely death was a blow to the Museum. The cause of death was not known or revealed if indeed known. He had previously had a kidney transplant, so possibly that had something to do with his passing. His brother Lloyd Clayton took over the reins of the MCLM. He tried to pull things together, putting on events and expanding Library services to the local community. Many volunteers worked at the location which became a Mecca to the African-American community on the West Coast. But storm clouds were brewing, and an outrageous display of dirty politics was closing in, leading to the destruction and disappearance of this invaluable Library.

Lloyd Clayton

At an event at the MCLM on November 9th, 2018, which was to celebrate the creation of a cultural corridor in Culver City, former City Councilman Jim Clarke oddly stood up with some “bad news”. He said that he heard that Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas had decided to evict the Library and replace it with a “constituent center.” This was shocking to Lloyd Clayton and the folks at the event, who could not believe that Ridley-Thomas would do something like that. Clarke said Ridley-Thomas wanted them out by the end of the year.

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas evicted the MCLM

Then a couple weeks later, at the annual stakeholder meeting of the MCLM on November 20, the Senior Deputy for Ridley-Thomas showed up and said that the library had to get out, that the building needed repairs and that part of the roof had collapsed. It turned out that due to a small leak in part of the building a few ceiling tiles had fallen down. The spokeswoman also ranted on that the MCLM had not paid rent for years, and that the building is worth $93,000 per month. Forgetting that the Museum had an agreement with the County for a token rent of $1 per year and that the whole reason for the Library and Museum to be in the building was to provide the books, films, documents and archives to enrich the community. Over and over, I have observed that malicious bureaucrats will use this excuse to close down libraries: “The Library isn’t making any money,” they whine. Forgetting, of course, that libraries and museums usually don’t make money, they exist for cultural enrichment and benefit to the community.

On April 18, 2019 the MCLM is officially evicted by Ridley-Thomas, L.A. County’s powerful Supervisor.

Earl Offari Hutchinson led the fight to save the Library

This provoked an outrage from the community. Earl Offari Hutchinson, a radio personality and community leader, launched a vigorous campaign to save the MCLM. Starting on the 28 of April he held several demonstrations in front of the Library. He was supported by former Supervisor Yvonne Burke and Mayor Wells of Culver City. Hutchnson gathered a lot of support and wondered how one man (Ridley-Thomas) could get away with doing something like this with no public support. Despite petitions, phone calls, and letters from Culver City officials protesting this outrage, the Supervisors remained silent. The petitions and the community were totally ignored, and the County did not even have the courtesy to answer letters from local officials and residents.

In July the MCLM was boxed up and moved out. Blurbs in local newspapers claimed that Cal State University Dominguez Hills had made a deal to take the entire collection and merge it into their campus library. The MCLM story faded from view at this point. Covid hit, the Lockdowns, the vaccine controversies, the economic stagnation. The Library was forgotten. Libraries, churches and meetings were banned by the County.

A couple of years went by. When I tried to find where the Library had moved to, I hit a dead-end. The Librarian at CSUDH told me that they had been expecting the collection but it had never showed up. The Library, with its 2 million books, films, and documents had vanished.

And now we are presented with a strange coincidence. The building at 4130 Overland, former home of the MCLM, is now occupied by big pharma and big medicine. A huge non-profit called BioscienceLA is ensconced in the building. This non-profit was founded in 2018, just at the time Ridley-Thomas was first talking about evicting the MCLM. What a coincidence! Their brochure says “Launched with financial support from founding sponsors representing government, industry and philanthropic sectors, all of whom endorse the potential of Los Angeles to become a major West Coast life sciences innovation hub.”

I dropped by to see for myself, but the doors are locked to outsiders. A brochure was passed through a small cracked open door by a woman who didn’t want to answer any questions. The building is used as a meeting hub, so executives in the BioLA community can have a place to meet and not have to drive all over LA. They also recruit and train young students for placement in the medical companies and university medical systems.

Looking back through the postings of Urbanize Los Angeles and other websites reveals some interesting financial claims.

2019 – A news post claims BioLA received 4 million dollars to remodel the building on Overland. The money came from “Discretionary Funds” of the Second Supervisorial District (Ridley-Thomas). They also received a 5 year lease gratis, with an option for three five year extensions. (It was not stated whether the extensions were also gratis, or if there would be actual rent).

2020 – BioscienceLA’s “Biofutures Program” receives a 1 million dollar grant from Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas.

2021 – A news post says that “L.A. Builds a Bioscience Hub to Challenge Biotech Scene in San Diego and Boston”. The article claims that L.A. County had invested 10 million dollars in the project.

2021 – October 13 – Mark Ridley Thomas charged in a bribery and fraud scheme by a Federal Grand Jury. This was a scheme involving his son and the University of Southern California.

2023 – March 30 – Ridley-Thomas Convicted of Bribery, Conspiracy and Mail Fraud.

2023 – August 28th Ridley-Thomas Sentenced to 3 1/2 years in Prison. The Department of Justice never mentioned anything about the MCLM’s eviction and his relationship to BioscienceLA and his funding.

This story is not finished. There is more to come, soon.

Rest in Peace:
Mayme A. Clayton
Avery Clayton
Jerry Weinstein
Ed Winthrup
Mark Sailor
Melvin Guptin
Avery Mosiah Kennard

Thank you all for reading this. Any comments, corrections, or thoughts, please send them to bookman451@gmail.com. PH

Hollywood’s Lost Book World East of Vine Click Here

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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!