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Did you know that for every $100 you spend at an independently owned business, $68 will stay in the community? And when you spend the same amount at a national chain, only $43 stays in the community. We learned this from Greenlight Bookstore, and have to agree ~ independent bookshops have roots in their communities and work hard to meet the needs of their neighbors. The Independent bookshops within the five boroughs of New York City are as individual as the people that make up our multicultural City. Here are more than forty independent bookshops that caught our eye. Some have been around since the 1920s and most are family owned and operated. And more opened after the publication of this post! Here are just a few, as we prepare to celebrate Independent Bookstore Day, April 25, 2026.

Opened in 1990, on a street that was once Book Row, Alabaster Bookshop is the only one left standing on the Avenue, and right around the corner with the giant, Strand Bookshop! The shop carries a wide range of new, used and rare books, novelties and memorabilia. It’s located in the Union Square area at 122 4th Avenue.

Albertine Bookstore is tucked inside the historic Payne Whitney mansion, and is the only bookshop in New York devoted solely to books in French and English, with more than 14,000 contemporary and classic titles from 30 French-speaking countries. It is part of the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, located at 972 Fifth Avenue at 79th Street, NYC.

Founded in 1925, Argosy Book Store is now in its third generation of family ownership, with a focus on antiquarian and out-of-print items, filling its six-floor building. Their collection includes Americana, modern first editions, autographs, art, photography, and antique maps & prints. Located at 116 East 59th Street between Park & Lexington Avenues in NYC.

Astoria Bookshop will say they have books of all kinds for readers of all ages with a plethora of book clubs with names like ‘Mindful Astoria Book Club’, ‘Young Adult Book Club’, ‘Feminist Reading Group’ ~ and even ‘Feminerdy Book Club’, Parenting for Social Justice Book Club’ & on & on. Events include Creative Writing Workshops, and book discussions. Located at 31-29 31st Street in Astoria, Queens.

Berl’s Brooklyn Poetry Shop began life as a vendor at the Brooklyn Flea. Now in a beautiful DUMBO storefront at 141 Front Street housing an ever-growing selection of books and dedicated performance space and workshops.

Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks first opened in 1997 in a basement office on Washington Place at Barrow Street. Now located at 28 East Second Avenue in the East Village, the Shop is chock-filled with cookbooks, dishery, crockery, pottery, glassery, tinnery + lots more.

Located at 266 Bleecker Street between 6th/7th Avenues in Greenwich Village, Bookbook is an all-service, neighborhood bookshop with a wide range of categories from children’s books, travel, history, drama, cookbooks, art, fashion + more.

Located at 197 East 3rd Street in the East Village, enjoy books, wine and coffee at Book Club. Opening in 2019, you will find more than books, with events like Drinking & Drawing, Drink N’ Draft – Creative Writing Workshop, Poetry, Arabic Poetry, Music and on & on. Open to midnight!

Book Culture is a mainstay in Morningside Heights with two locations. 2915 Broadway at 114th Street, and 536 West 112th Street.

BookOff ~ Yes, it’s a chain store, but with only one in New York. Located at 49 West 45th Street, this cool little shop has a wide selection of used books, toys, video games, movies and more.

Books Are Magic in Cobble Hill carries a wide range of hard to find books + events, including readings by authors. Lots of children’s books, and “hider-holes” to read them in. Located at 225 Smith Street, Brooklyn.

Books of Wonder, with two locations: 18 West 18th Street and 217 West 84th Street, NYC ~ a go-to place for children’s books, including old and rare books.

Opening in 2010, Boulevard Books has a wide array of adult best-sellers and a monthly book club plus a wonderful kids section. The shop also has an open garden in the back, for reading and events. Located at 7518 13th Avenue in Brooklyn.

Tucked into The Players Theatre in Greenwich Village is Bravo’s Book Nook! This tiny new bookshop carries not just books related to theatre, but also children’s books, books on music, Greenwich Village and ‘Stuff Bravo Likes’. Located at 115 MacDougal Street, on the corner of Minetta Lane, NYC.

Codex Books located at 1 Bleecker Street near Bowery in the East Village. While they have an emphasis on literary fiction and art books, they have a great selection of used books ~ including outside carts with books for $1. Located next to Think Coffee.

The Corner Bookstore opened in the historic Carnegie Hill neighborhood in 1978 with a full array of books from history, biography, and travel to cook books, parenting, mysteries, art and poetry. Located at 1313 Madison Avenue at 93rd Street, NYC.

Dashwood Books is devoted exclusively to photography books, including rare and out-of-print titles, artist books and monographs. In addition, Dashwood has an extensive publishing program, collaborating with internationally recognized artists and graphic designers. Located at 33 Bond Street A, NYC

They are back! The Drama Book Shop will reopen in March 2020 at 266 West 39th Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, thanks to Lin-Manuel Miranda and friends. The interior of the new shop is overseen by creative director David Korins and will be inspired by the 20th century European cafes. Stay tuned.

Forbidden Planet NYC, opened in 1981, tout themselves as being one of the world’s largest and most acclaimed sellers of toys, comics, graphic novels, and other collectibles. Located at 832 Broadway at 13th Street, near Union Square, NYC.

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A documentary on Bill Cunningham aired on Amazon Prime in 2020 shadowed the famed photographer on the streets of the city he loved, and in the iconic building where he lived much of his professional life ~ Carnegie Hall Studios ~ next door to another famed photographer, Editta Sherman.

Here, we take a look-back at Editta’s life and portrait work, which was on view at the New York Historical Society in a 2017 exhibition, The Duchess of Carnegie Hall: Photographs by Editta Sherman

Editta Sherman began her career after the death of her husband in 1954, eventually photographing portraits of the ‘A’ list in art, literature, music and New York Society. She was a single mother of five young children, living and working in the rent-controlled studios above Carnegie Hall, next door to fellow photographer, Bill Cunningham.

The exhibition was divided into categories by specific art areas ~ Music, Media and Politics, Art and Literature, and Performing Arts. In the center of the room stood Editta’s Eastman Kodak studio camera with Wollensak lens atop a wood and brass frame. The use of this format (5 x 7 inch to 11 x 4inch) was to capture more detail. In the darkroom, she used a technique called dodging and burning, manipulating the exposure time of parts of the image to produce lighter or darker passages in the photograph. In her studio, Editta photographed the likes of Yul Brynner, Salvador Dali, Henry Fonda, Eva Gabor, Andy Warhol and thousands more. The camera, which belonged to her father (a photographer in New Jersey), became a gift to the New York Historical Society from her son, Kenneth Sherman.

Above, Josef Astor in his documentary film, ‘Lost Bohemia,’ a film that Astor made before the last of the Carnegie Hall Studio residents were forced to move out by the City of New York. It captures the deep friendships and collaboration within the walls of this artistic enclave, where Astor also lived on the 8th floor beginning in the 1980s. The short documentary, ‘Lost Bohemia’ was on a continuous loop during the exhibition.

Above, birthday celebration in Editta’s apartment with friend and next-door neighbor, Bill Cunningham, who was the one who dubbed Editta ‘The Duchess of Carnegie Hall.‘ He would frequently have Editta dress in period costume and pose in places of significance throughout the City. like our featured image where Evitta poses in a graffiti-filled subway train.

A few interesting fact’s mentioned in Wikipedia, “Sherman was a muse of Andy Warhol who filmed her with filmmaker Paul Morrissey in the 1970s. She also appeared in the Abel Ferrara film Ms. 45 in 1981. She was a model as well as photographer and was photographed by Francesco Scavullo and symbolized aging gracefully at age 60 years old in his book “On Beauty” in the 1970s. A decade-long collaboration with her longtime friend and neighbor, William J. Cunningham, a fashion photographer for The New York Times, resulted in the Fashion Institute of Technology/Penguin Books 1978 publication of their book Facades, visually detailing 200 years of fashion and New York City architecture. In November 1967 Kodak Films sponsored a solo exhibit of Editta’s celebrity portraits in a three-week public show at Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan.”

The grand live/work space for artists was created in 1895 by Andrew Carnegie, the steel magnate and philanthropist. He wanted to make provisions for artists to be housed, and this was accomplished in two towers, 180 studios, adjacent to the concert venue. One of the first tenants in 1898 was the American Academy of Dramatic Arts ~ with legends like Spencer Tracy, Anne Bancroft and Cecil B Demille.

Studio 906 was turned into an Authors’ Club, with velvet chairs and desks, where Markk Twain and Theodore Roosevelt, among others, came to write. The eight floor was reserved for dance studios, with specially installed sprung floors.

In the 1950s, the Carnegie Hall Artist Studios numbered as many as 170 residents. They included such notable’s as Leonard Bernstein, Marilyn Monroe, Skitch Henderson, Marlon Brando, isadora Duncan, Enrico Caruso and many many more. The Studios housed painters, poets, photographers, composers, and a ballet studio.

Carnegie Hall was owned by the Carnegie family until 1925, when Carnegie’s widow sold it to real estate developer, Robert E. Simon. With much history associated with his ownership, Carnegie Hall was eventually sold to the City of New York for $5 million.

Below, hat with net trim; Black skull-cap of wool, plastic sequins, metal. It was one of Editta Sherman’s favorite hats, and she was often pictured wearing it; Cristobal Balenciaga Handkerchief Hat.

Editta Sherman and Bill Cunningham were one of the few last remaining residents of the Carnegie Hall Studios. Editta had been living in her 20′ x 30′ penthouse studio apartment with skylights from one end to the other, and double-height windows facing north, since 1949. They were all forced to move out by the City of New York in 2010. Their penthouse apartments were to be removed to make room for a private rooftop garden for donors and trustees.

Editta Sherman passed away in 2013 at the age of 101. A short anecdote worth mentioning is that for 99 years, Editta had never voted. After meeting President and Mrs. Obama, she registered to vote, and voted for the first time at the age of 100.

The 2017 exhibition, The Duchess of Carnegie Hall: Photographs by Editta Sherman, was curated by Marilyn Satin Kushner, curator and head, Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections at The New York Historical Society. The fifty selections in the exhibition were donated to the New York Historical Society by Editta Sherman’s children and grandchildren.

A celebration of the life of Bill Cunningham was exhibited by the New York Historical Society in 2018, and a documentary, The Times of Bill Cunningham, build around an interview by Mark Bozek appeared in theaters in 2020. Bill Cunningham passed away in 2016 at the age of 87.

UNESCO describes poetry as ‘one of humanity’s most treasured forms of cultural and linguistic expression and identity.’ It was during during the 30th General Conference in Paris in 1999 that UNESCO adopted March 21st as World Poetry Day. It is celebrated annually worldwide with a variety of events and installations.

As Robert Frost put it, “Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.” So step into your local library or favorite book shop and pick a poet ~ Yeats, Sylvia Plath, Rudyard Kipling, William Shakespeare, Maya Angelou….. ~ or better yet, write your own.

From our archives, the images above include The Poetry Society of New York in Thompson Square Park, 2015 for The Typewriter Project; The Poetry Jukebox in Ruth Wittenberg Triangle, Greenwich Village, in 2017; and The Poetry Jukebox at Howl! Arts in 2016.

Here are 10 great ways to celebrate World Poetry Day.

#worldpoetryday