New York City's elite bookstore in 1946 was Brentano's on Fifth Avenue between 47th and 48th. It was also the city's largest bookstore. Scribner's, across the street, was its main competitor for the upscale market. Doubleday's flagship, one of several branches in the city, was a few blocks north.
Brentano's was not a stand-alone independent bookstore but the flagship of a small chain. Before the Depression, it had several stores in the city as well as in other cities but after filing for bankruptcy, it pulled back. In 1946, Brentano's still had stores in Washington DC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Honolulu and famously in Paris, where it had reopened after the war.
Many New Yorkers had been greeted through the years at the door by a dignified, impeccable elderly gentleman with pince-nez glasses at the front door. Many did not realize that this was Brentano's president, Arthur Brentano. He had an air of erudition, although he had not been to high school. He and his brothers had left Cincinnati to work for their uncle, the store's owner, when they were boys. Arthur became president in 1914. His great love was the rare book section that he had started. He left the administrative side to his son, Arthur Jr., who became president after his father's death in 1944. All sales personnel were expected to be erudite, well-groomed and willing to provide limitless service to patrons.
Most hardcover books were on display on the main floor. Brentano's also had a basement store, which it preferred to call its "downstairs store," where customers could find hundreds of foreign magazine titles along with pulps and lowbrow joke books. You could also buy magazine subscriptions here, although the store had temporarily suspended selling subscriptions to the French fashion magazines until they were being produced on a more regular schedule. Downstairs was also where you would find comic books, greeting cards, cookbooks, technical books and books on hobbies and sports. Visitors could sit at tables and read magazines but they were no longer allowed to trace fashions out of the publications as they had in the past. The store had also stopped sending out expensive magazines c.o.d. because too often they were returned with pages missing. A small table at the foot of the staircase carried astrology books and pamphlets.
Books for children were carried on the mezzanine. The store also had stationery, games and appointment books. The binding department could cover your books in fine leather or repair old bindings. The art department carried foreign and domestic art publications, hard-to-find books and reproductions of paintings and statues. The music shop had records and record players.
Almost from its start, the store was noted for its wide assortment of books in French, German, Italian and Spanish. During the War, it published books in French for distribution in the US and the French-speaking world outside of the Nazi-occupied territories. Clerks assigned to the foreign book sections were expected to have a working knowledge of foreign languages.
Brentano's also dealt in rare books. Publishers Weekly noted this week that the store had acquired a 17-volume set of The Lives and Times of the Pope valued at $50,000 (over $500,000 in 2014 dollars) which it was offering for sale. The precious volume was currently on display in the window on Fifth Avenue, after an April 12 private showing to prominent Catholic clergy and layman in the offices of Arthur Brentano Jr.
Brentano's had a venerable history. It dated back to a newsstand opened by August Brentano, an Austrian immigrant with a withered arm, in 1853. It originally stood in front of the New York hotel at a time when newspapers were more often hawked by newsboys on the street. Brentano created a niche by carrying newspapers from Europe as well as the New York journals. He later changed locations and added a few books. He opened his first real bookstore in a basement in 1860. From the start, he catered to the carriage trade, offering books and periodicals not obtainable elsewhere. He followed the northward march of upscale retailers from lower Broadway near Washington Square to Union Square in 1870, a block away from Tiffany. This store became a tourist attraction as a place where one might catch a glimpse of one of the era's literary celebrities. He passed the store on to his nephews but he could be found at the cash register in front until his death in 1886.
In 1907 the store moved to 27th and Fifth, when this was the city's retail center and then in 1927 to 1 West 47th Street. The premises was later extended to Fifth Avenue and the address became 586 Fifth Avenue. The store had weathered some hard times, including the depression of 1893 and a devastating fire in 1898.
Brentano’s went bankrupt during the Depression. Salaries were cut drastically. The publishing division was sold. Many of the branches were closed. Stanton Griffis, an investment banker and one of the era's preeminent wheeler-dealers, came to the rescue. He specialized in corporate reorganizations. He took the title of chairman, although he stayed in the background. Griffis was a partner in Hemphill, Noyes & Co, as well as chairman of Paramount Pictures, Madison Square Garden and Lee Tire & Rubber. He backed many of Katherine Cornell's plays. Under his stewardship, Brentano's returned to profitability.
The store shared in the boom in the book industry during the Second World War. Meanwhile Griffis was off on government missions around Europe. He then served, somewhat controversially, as Red Cross Commissioner for the Pacific, and later as an ambassador to Poland, Egypt, Argentina and then Spain. In his 1952 autobiography, Lying in State, he complained about the competition that bookstores had from book clubs with their discounted prices and from department stores with their policy of offering bestsellers as loss leaders. For a short while, the store refused to carry titles that were Literary Guild selections until management realized this was only cutting their profits.
The Brentano name continued well into the present era. The Manhattan store closed in 1996, but by then it had moved across the street into the space formerly occupied by its competitor, Scribner's. It was done in by the Barnes & Noble across the street which sold books at lower prices. The mall outlets that had been opened under the Brentano name were acquired by K-Mart which eventually merged them into their Border's chain. Scribner's. which had moved to a lower rent district when Brentano's took over their former location, made way for a Barnes & Noble. It is ironic that Barnes & Noble, the bookstore slayer of a decade ago, is now in financial trouble as book sales shift to online. People still like to browse bookstores, thumb through magazines and sit down for a cup of coffee. They just don't buy their books there.
Brentano's chairman,Wall Street wheeler-dealer Stanton Griffis, complained about union demands that employees be paid livable wages. Why, in his day. he proclaimed. young intellectuals were willing to work for a pittance just to be surrounded by books. Griffis, of course, did not himself work for a pittance. He lived in grand style. In fact his lavish lifestyle was a source of controversy in Honolulu where he resided during his wartime Red Cross tenure. In Manhattan he lived in a 14-room apartment on fashionable Sutton Place. It had five bathrooms. He had been married and divorced twice. Earlier in the decade, his daughter, Theodora, or Teddy to her friends, had a brief marriage to Broadway lyricist John Latouche, who was gay and a Communist sympathizer, if not Party member. Teddy was herself a lesbian and hung out with the circle of gay Communists of the era even as she fulfilled the social obligations of her class.