New York's Strand bookstore fights back over landmark status
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
The main effect of this is that I get ads for car insurance in morse code.
I assume that my mysterious benefactor is someone who used to read a blog I used to keep and then shut down. When I had the blog my address and name were obtainable from my site's whois records. There's also a possibility it's some old friend who is just being anonymous for some reason. I doubt it's something else but it could be I suppose.
On a separate but topically related issue I also receive packages from amazon of fairly obscure things which are usually relevant to me. Imagine that I had dinner with a friend of a friend who turned out to be a former Chinese Circus Bear Trainer. A week later from amazon I receive a starter kit for Circus Bear Training. And I pass it on to my acquaintance who finds it interesting I got it. It's not that but a similar thing. I wonder if it's random shipments as part of some scam I can't imagine to comprehend. I think that it was a Bear kit after meeting with a Bear person is actually a coincidence and I'm reading too much into it since no interpretations other than weird scam make sense. I don't worry about any of these anymore and instead get excited when I receive a new bizarre shipment on an erratic irregular schedule, and show off the package to my friends and family who find the whole thing fairly hilarious. And some of them report to me that they too get random mis-shipments from amazon. While acknowledging that the Bear Kit takes the cake. So maybe Amazon's system is just messed up somehow.
It's something that is hopefully going to fall into decline now that shipping rates are becoming more balanced.
This doesn't match though the higher value items, costing dozens to low hundreds of dollars, which I've inexplicably received, and which seem to be related to random things I've done recently that are unique. Those shipments I feel reasonably are bizarre and unusual and otherwise reasonable explanations of scams just don't explain them.
And many times (usually?) it's uncontested -- current owners find value in its historical authenticity, and any future buyer is well aware they can't change it.
BUT -- in the case of a functioning business that has no need for the status and finds it harmful for business reasons, it does seem unfair and unconstitutional.
The remedy seems clear: if the city wants to preserve it for future generations (good), then the city should pay the Strand for whatever additional expenses or lost revenue a neutral arbiter judges is fair. It won't be perfect, but it would be due process to make it constitutional.
Obviously much less is at stake here than having a separate set of laws for whites vs blacks, but it's the same principal.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-a-home-is-suddenly-called-...
[2] https://www.tampabay.com/storyimage/HI/20190510/ARTICLE/1905...
For example, if I were the Strand owner and I thought of building a 100 story condo complex on top of the existing Strand bookstore, then I tell NYC, “Either you need to pay me a few hundred million or I will build this complex on the landmark.”
Wouldn’t that just incentivize wealthy owners to buy up landmarks to hold them for ransom against the city, which seems contrary to the function of landmarks?
Conservation easements work this way, and both preservationists and land owners reach amicable agreements.
The real issue here is corrupt politics in NYC. Why should owners of the Strand and other old buildings have to pay (through decreased property values and development opportunities) to keep the "character of the neighborhood" when others are allowed to build high rises?
My understanding is that this new historic zone was created partially to get other large developments approved.
Penn Station gets a lot of attention in this regard. But, at the time, no one was volunteering to step in and pay for renovating Penn Station and operating it given a bankrupt Penn Central railroad.
But then I'm mostly not much for very sterile modern cities.
Isn't this a more likely reason for the lawsuit than "We won't be able to do exterior renovations as easily"? Wouldn't you be upset if the city devalued your property by fifty million bucks?
Think of it this way, without New Yorkers, this building would be worthless.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jul/02/calcutta-arch...
I think Penn Central was a fantastically wrong decision (Rehnquist and Stevens dissented in that case). Obviously, the fact that a regulation diminishes the value of property is not sufficient to amount to a taking. The government can ban diesel cars and if that renders existing diesel cars worthless, so be it. Height limits (and the concept of air rights trading) can be justified on a similar principle, but they’re closer to the borderline. But historical landmark laws are not laws of general effect that happen to impact property values. They are targeted takings of private property without compensation.
If you want to have a say in how the community develops, maybe don't limit your options for developing your community? If future New Yorkers decide they don't want this building turned into a modern skyscraper, they can reject the required applications for building permits at that time.
Or is it more about "old" New Yorkers trying to make sure new New Yorkers don't have a say?
New Yorkers have made it illegal to build the very same buildings and neighborhoods they claim to love - while also demanding that existing neighborhoods be preserved because they’re so “unique.”
It’s almost like there’s some other agenda at play...
The owner described it as: "it would “destroy” the popular store." "I call it a bureaucratic noose that’s been put on my throat now."
Strong words, has she actually had an issue yet? What changes are needed to keep them competitive?
I have a strong suspicion that's been tried unsuccessfully before.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/438/104/#tab-opi...
It's very sad that so many ways we go about trying to preserve history end up promoting it's destruction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactance_(psychology) Another example is where a product is banned like phosphate containing detergents which causes the market to go out and buy it all up.
I think they found that areas that were going to be designated as protected areas experienced accelerated development over a one year time horizon.
They were meant only to prevent city-wide fires. As with everything government, once the process was established, the purpose for using it could be stretched and expanded easily.
A historical building is effectively a positive externality provided by the owner. The state cannot ethically force you to provide such a thing, nor can it do so without just compensation (Constitution.) The takings clause is very clear on this; you are preserving a building for public benfit, so the only Constitutional way to do it is by acquisition at fair market rates.
Some courts have ruled the way you describe, but more have ruled that it's not a legal taking, since no real-property rights are actually lost via conveyance (in the legal, non-moveable property sense). The value of those rights might be reduced, but the right is still yours; it wasn't a legal taking. They view it as being not much different than a bad neighbor bringing down property values.
Personally, I don't think they should even be able to do it via the takings clause. If implemented at all, it should be strictly opt-in, similar to how zoning is initially adopted in new or annexed jurisdiction.
(Also it's not "public benefit", it's "public use". It's often interpreted by courts as public benefit now, but that's something else I disagree with.)
A store has to get a permit for an awning and also renew that permit any time they want to make changes to it or make any repairs that alter the appearance of that awning.
The cheapest awning permit is $6000 in NYC.
Even worse, frequently there are codes that change and businesses have to stay on top of the law changes but the DCA only publishes guides to stay current with the law every decade or two. In the meantime they just fine anyone in violation. They have all kinds of things they commonly fine for like not displaying your business license prominently in two places in your business, not putting your license number at the top of your receipt in a certain place, etc.
It's straight up grift.
That said, it's a sad day when any bookstore goes out of business, especially one with a rich history like The Strand (despite most of that history being behind it now).
I've found that while the inventory on a given day might not be super stellar, the sheer volume of books that flow through their hands is the true value they provide to the ecosystem. I see them as more of a used book broker than a museum for used books.
As an example to explain what I mean, 2 years ago I added to my wishlist some obscure book, last printed in the 80s by a small midwestern university publisher. Two weeks ago, I received an email saying that they had just put it on the shelf! That evening, I walked in, found it more or less immediately, and wandered about looking for particular fiction authors, before finding a marvelously-illustrated classic in two volumes, that was printed in the 1940s. I left maybe $40 poorer. This story repeats itself every month or two.
While you might be able to find such things on Amazon, I find that the Strand both beckons you to search and rewards you for that search. I don't think anything in New York competes with them, pound for pound.
While, I agree that their branding and marketing focus has shifted a lot towards "trendy", newer material (i.e. where the real money is), I'm skeptical of the notion that the quality or range of their used goods have declined proportionally, if at all.
That fantastic selection of books did not make The Strand a used book museum but rather a world class used bookstore -- a position they've suffered a self-inflicted fall from, though they're still relatively good, but only because so many other used bookstores have either gone out of business or closed their brick and mortar shops and transitioned to selling completely online.
So kudos to them for surviving as a brick and mortar shop, but we should recognize the price they and we have had to pay for that survival.
Are you saying there were fewer islands and more stacks in the past? I can definitely empathize if that's the case; it seems like a solid 1/3 of the floor space is islands nowadays.
That being said, as you alluded to, I think it's a smart trade-off that's allowed them to stay afloat, seeing as the bulk of their revenue must come from new publications and the publisher events. However, I think I still hold on to my assertion that their selection remains deep and broad, but I willingly capitulate that it's been stretched over a wider span of time. The misplaced gems inevitably seem to surface there, given enough time.
I think that, as long as us good New Yorkers continue to sell our books to the Strand instead of Amazon, we'll be in decent shape. :)
was never a newyorker but did briefly visit the strand in ~2002, and from my fuzzy recollection (wasn't in the market for a book at the time) it was pretty much entirely all giant stacks.