The Upper West Side location of Book Culture — one of the most beloved independent book chains left in Manhattan — was seized and shuttered on Tuesday by the city marshal over a rent dispute. Located on Columbus Avenue between 81st and 82nd streets, a notice on the store's door reads: "We have had to close unexpectedly. Sorry for any inconvenience." On Twitter, the store referred to the location as being "temporarily closed," but it's unclear if or when it may be reopened.
Co-owner Chris Doeblin told Gothamist this was the culmination of a dispute with their landlord over late rent payments: "Our landlord, Walker, Malloy & Company, has been sending us into legal action for being late with the rent anytime that happened in the past," he said. "Over the summer we fell behind as much as three and a half or four months before we started regular payments. We have cut our arrears [and] our rent is now close to $38,000 per month. The marshal was sent today in spite of that, and what I understood was that we had been assured that the eviction would be stayed. I hope we can work something out."
A sign outside Book Culture, seen on January 7, 2019.
Doeblin, who owns three other Book Culture locations in the city (including two in Manhattan Valley and one in Long Island City), made a public plea last summer for help to keep the stores open. "Our four stores are in danger of closing soon and we need financial assistance or investment on an interim basis to help us find our footing. This is true in spite of the fact that business has been good and we are widely supported and appreciated," he wrote at the time. While they've been able to get back on track with help from their community lending program (they've raised over $500K so far through it), that didn't stop this from happening.
"As you know, we were in the early stages of a comeback and require that nearly all our creditors give us the forbearance to earn our way back," Doeblin said, noting Book Culture's finances were much improved from last summer. "If the landlord insists on all the arrears all at once, $145,000, I don't have an answer for that."
A city marshal’s seizure notice outside Book Culture, seen on January 7, 2019.
Last summer, Doeblin described the back rent situation as "a kind of awful spiral. It becomes harder to find any vendors that will ship to us, unpaid debts to vendors and creditors will eventually be foreclosed. An old saying is 'slowly at first and then all at once.'" This was why, rather than start a Kickstarter, he said he appealed directly to city officials to pay more attention to the role and importance of smaller businesses trying to stay afloat in NYC.
At the time, he also blamed payroll cost increases on the city's minimum wage raise, which he says increased hourly wages for his employees "from $10 to $15.25 since December 2016" and forced him to initiate layoffs and reorganizing.
Book Culture had previously clashed with employees over low pay during a unionization effort in 2014, at which time employees said they were fired for voting to unionize.
"Over this last summer we owed as much as $175,000 before we made regular monthly payments again starting in August," Doeblin said. But on December 20th, Doeblin received an eviction notice. He says he immediately brought Walker, Malloy & Company two checks totaling over $75,000, and was assured that the eviction would not happen on January 2nd as the notice stated.
"I asked that we have a meeting to discuss face to face what was possible going forward and what their expectations would be. I asked that the owner attend," he said. "The next I heard was the closure by a marshal."
As West Side Rag reports, Doeblin and co-owner John MacArthur, the publisher of Harper's magazine, have also been "embroiled in litigation" in recent months, stemming from the monetary troubles last summer (specifically over the use of the aforementioned community lending program).
Doeblin said that he was in contact with Walker, Malloy & Company on Tuesday and Wednesday, but "they won't budge. We have no idea that we will be able to open as Book Culture on Columbus again at this moment, until we find [the money]. We have established that they will accept nothing less than the full repayment of arrears."
Walker, Malloy & Company, a "full service" real estate brokerage firm, did not immediately respond to our request for comment.
