The Main Stem's "Tourist" Book Stores
A girlie magazine of the late 1940s
But soon other shops supplemented how-to books,
astrology, and adventure fiction with above and under the counter
erotica. Many, as
did the back date magazine places--which were sure bets for racy photos
and "art studies" photo books--stayed open until the wee
hours.
White-collar and office workers, whose needs had been shaped and
sanctioned by many showcases of mass spectating, and especially by the
commercialization of sex on Times Square signage, store windows, movie
marquees, and newsstands, were especially entertained by the erotic.
signage for Bond Clothes (upper center). For over a generation, the
Times Square area, in the
words of one investment banker, had been
“a staggering
machine of desire."
Men, and their dates, browsed in more privacy than the street could
offer in any book store in which they could find a variety of prurient
titillation. Where but in the prime entertainment zone of the country’s
largest city could book publishers, distributors and sellers who served
the general public learn in more
detail about the ingenuity with which sex was insinuated into the
“staggering machine of desire” which drove the economy? And where else
could bookmen get better acquainted with the boundaries beyond which
sex became illicit, and therefore more dangerous, and more lucrative to
exploit?
Wholesaler's
brochure for a Max Padell set of joke books, c. mid 50s
These tourist book and magazine stores met the general-interest needs
of the enormous crowds at the Main Stem. The hoi polloi wanted
entertaining and practical books to read: historical novels, “how-to”
(dance, hypnotize, play the stock market, win at the gambling tables,
improve your vocabulary), civil service preparation manuals,
horoscope pamphlets, joke books, romances, war stories, biographies of
contemporary politicians and film stars, science fiction, speculations
on alien life forms and their visits to earth past and present,
westerns, and scandal and gossip items. A standard item was the “Dream Book” for
policy players, a long-popular astrology booklet which attached
number combinations to items in one’s dreams. For over a century,
dreamers–and day dreamers–had played numbers and hoped to win the
day’s jackpot). The general bookstores, often by retailing Max Padell’s
items, provided these various steady sellers.
An "art study" booklet, c.1950, centerfold. "This publication is
essential to the artist and sculptor
whom [sic] cannot afford the expensive fees for the live models to
continue their studies."
Examples were one of the two Broadway Book Shops (at 1543; the other
was across the
street), Midtown Books (Ben Friedman, 1105 6th), G & A Books (251 W
42nd), Harmony (112 W
49th), Abbey Books (259 W 42nd, later a pioneer in peep booths with
film loops), Publisher’s
Outlet (Edward [“Eddie”] Mishkin, at 254 W 42nd, was a partner of
Finkelstein), Peerless (38 W
42), and Bob’s Bargain Books. The latter, near the corner of 6th Ave
and 42nd, was special.