Strand Book Store

86 years and 18 miles of books and counting: the history of strand books where it all began: bound by a family the strand was born in 1927 over on fourth avenue on what was then called ”book row”. book row covered six city blocks and housed forty-eight bookstores. ben bass, the father, was all of twenty-five years old when he began his modest used bookstore. an entrepreneur at heart, a reader by nature, this erudite man began with $300 dollars of his own and $300 dollars that he borrowed from a friend. ben sought to create a place where books would be loved, and book lovers could congregate. he named his bookstore after the london street where avant-garde writers like thackeray, dickens and mill once gathered and interesting book publishers thrived. the strand quickly became a greenwich village institution where writers went to converse, sell their books and find a hidden treasure to buy. today, the strand is the sole survivor of book row’s colorful past. ben’s son, fred, by the age of