RUDIMENTS, pt. 165
Making Cars
At 116 east 59th street, for as long
as I ever have known, there's been
an antiquarian bookstore named
'Argosy Books.' Simply calling it
a bookstore does it a grave injustice.
It's not hardly that at all. Nor are its
clerks and desk attendants anything
like bookstore people. Nor is the
atmosphere. It does nothing to keep
the swarming trade of book-browsers,
drifters, curious and otherwise roving
types, in. It wants, in fact, none of that.
Everything is done minimally here.
Perhaps the only real outreach to others
is a section out front, under cover but
outside, past which you walk to enter :
outdoor bookshelves, built into the
front, wood, nice, glass, keyed cabinets,
etc. There, with the marked-down items,
you, me, or anyone, is entitled space.
Once indoors, another matter.
-
There's an old-world flavor to things.
Woven, of rugs and tapestries, cases
and shelving. maybe 6 or 7 floors,
maybe 5, I don't know, and each floor
has its specialty. Nothing haphazard,
mind you, but a specialty. One floor,
antiquarian maps, large, framed,
wall-sized for the (everything here
mostly has come from old New York,
the broken-out estate stocks of books
and such from passed on generations,
that great wheel of readers' deaths and
diminishments (much like New York's)
over the years. Let's accede to calling
it 'leftovers'. Sad, but true. And numerous,
too, but costly. Another floor is for famed
signatures, autographs, things inscribed,
the letter of Lincoln or Thomas Edison's
scribble on a notepage, a Churchill
birthday memo. Anything. Another
floor is New York/New Jersey books.
History. Photobooks, etc. Tomes, deep
writes, most anything except the jaunty
idea of fiction in place (which is, after
all, mostly a bookstore's trade, normally).
No matter, it's a place that must be seen,
and revered. Here's a funny thing too. I
occasionally step inside and actually
make a book purchase - and even
though I appear or come off as some
sort of chicken-fed street-bum lowlife,
perhaps (yes, I said perhaps), each time
this occurs these people come off as
if, just if, I may be some high-echelon
New York nobility they are not aware
of. In their thinking and manners - which
is always perfect, warm, structured and
quite nice, male and female - all old
and old-world; no niggling kids in this
joint - they reserve a form of fine
gentility and manner. I've grown
to appreciate that.
-
I've been going to Argosy for many
years. One thing, above all else,
remains riveting : There are stairs
within the store to get to wherever
you wish. But, yes, it can be a climb.
Just in the entry, and a real throw-back
to another world, to the left, is an
elevator and an attendant. A single,
small-box elevator, perhaps 5 people
and the attendant, tops; whether it
it goes by weight or people amount
I don't know. Anyway, (always the
same, smallish, black man) in a
little elevator cap and all (over the
years it seems the same person,
but it must have changed) and,
as elevator attendant, he takes
you in, closes first the gate, then
the doors close, and then he clicks a
lever of some sort into place, relating
to whichever floor you've asked for,
and the slow climb begins. All
small scale, and the little
sight-window allows you to
see out to dead-walls, and then the
floor entry you're passing, and
then dead walls again, and - upon
your destination - he shuts down,
uses the mechanicals to open
the door, and then the gate, as
you step out. It's very regal, yet
rompy and interesting too. Only
one time have I seen or had
another person on the elevator
with me.
-
I was reading today, about elevators,
which is how this got started. I
thought it was all fitting and it
jived in very well with my
small-scale memory of same:
"When I was a youngster, there
were still human elevator operators,
people whose job it was to go up
and down in an elevator all day,
stopping at the right floors to take
on and let off passengers. In the
early days they manipulated a
curious handle that could be swung
clockwise or counterclockwise
to make the elevator go up or
down, and they needed skill to
stop the elevator at just the right
height. People often had to step
up or down an inch or two upon
entering or leaving, and operators
always warned people about this.
They had lots of rules about what
to say when, and which floors to
go to first, and how to open doors,
and so forth. Their training consisted
in memorizing the rules and then
practicing: following the rules until
it became second nature. The rules
themselves had been hammered out
over the years in a process of slight
revisions and improvements." Yes,
perfectly, and perfectly Argosy apt.
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