page_title: Strand Bookstore
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Strand Bookstore / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Fred Bass at the Strand buying desk
context_page_description: The Strand Bookstore is an independent bookstore located at 828 Broadway, at the corner of East 12th Street in the East Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, two blocks south of Union Square. In addition to the main location, there is another store on the Upper West Side on Columbus Ave between West 81st and 82nd Streets, as well as kiosks in Central Park and Times Square. The company's slogan is "18 Miles Of Books," as featured on its stickers, T-shirts, and other merchandise. In 2016, The New York Times called The Strand "the undisputed king of the city’s independent bookstores."
context_section_description: Benjamin Bass was an emigrant from Lithuania who came to the United States when he was 17.  He worked as a messenger, salesman and subway construction worker before he came across the used-book district on Fourth Avenue between Astor Place and Union Square. His first bookstore was the Pelican Book Shop on Eighth Street near Greene Street.  However, the store was not a success, and Bass next opened the Strand – named after the street in London – in 1927 with $300 in his own savings and $300 he borrowed; early on, he slept on a cot in the store.  The new store was able to survive the Depression by use of Bass's extensive network of contacts.  Furthermore, his landlord was the last of the city's noted Stuyvesant family, and he carried the store through its lean years when Bass could not pay his rent; Bass later paid back the debt, and agreed to a schedule of voluntary rent increases during rent controls which were instituted with World War II.  After rent controls ended, the Stuyvesant interests doubled the rents on their other properties, but not on the Strand.
  The Strand was then located on Fourth Avenue, which had at the time 48 bookstores, in what was known as "Book Row", which was established as early as 1890. These started to disappear around the 1930s due to the Great Depression and again in the 1950s, due to rent increases. 
  Benjamin Bass died in 1978.
  Bass's son Fred – who started working in the store on weekends when he was 13 years old – took over the business in 1956 and the next year moved the store to the present location at the corner of East 12th Street and Broadway. The store expanded to the entire first floor of the building, and then first three floors in the 1970s. In 1996 Bass bought the building at East 12th Street and Broadway for $8.2 million, by which time the Strand was the largest used bookstore in the world. The store now occupies three and a half floors, with another one and half floors for offices.
  Strand also has two kiosks, one in Times Square and one in Central Park, and has a pop-up location in the Artists & Fleas market in Soho. They also participate in seasonal holiday markets in Union Square, Bryant Park, and Columbus Circle.
  Bass's daughter Nancy Bass Wyden, the current owner of the Strand, began helping in the store at age 6, sharpening pencils for staff. At 16, she began taking phone requests, working the cash register, and managing the store’s Central Park kiosks. After receiving her MBA from the University of Wisconsin and working briefly for Exxon, she returned to New York City to work for her father at The Strand. Wyden officially joined The Strand as a manager in 1986. She established the store’s Books by the Foot department, curating custom book collections and private libraries. She spearheaded major renovations and expansions of the store in 2005, and supervised the rollout of The Strand’s official bookish merchandise, including t-shirts and totes, which now account for over 15% of the business’s revenue. 
  Wyden become the co-owner of the store on her father's retirement in November 2017. With her father's death in January 2018, she is now the sole owner. 
  Wyden is married to United States Senator for Oregon, Ron Wyden, whom she met while on a trip to Portland to see Powell's Books.
caption: Fred Bass in 2013
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