Bonnie Slotnick Redux

Back in November I reported that Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks had been denied a lease renewal by its landlord on West 10th Street. Today I am happy to report that Bonnie has a new space--and the story of how she got it might renew your faith in New York City and the life of its book culture.



Bonnie just wrote to me in an email:

"Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks will soon reopen in an 1830s brick rowhouse at 28 East Second Street.

Margo and Garth Johnston, siblings who own the house, called and invited me to be their tenant in the ground-floor commercial space. Read that again, jaded New Yorkers! These wonderful people read of my plight and reached out to me because, in their eyes, a bookstore is the ideal tenant.

Their late mother, Eden Ross Lipson, was the longtime children's book editor at the New York Times Book Review, and it's a book-loving family. It's also a family that prizes the history and traditions of their neighborhood and appreciates the plight of the small-business owner.

The words 'thank you' are hardly adequate for what I want to say to Margo and Garth, but if every New Yorker joined me in saying them, that would be about right.

I'm sad to leave my friends on West Tenth Street, but I look forward to reopening my shop--in a bigger space with a back garden, no less--on East Second Street. I hope to do that right around February 1, even if the place is not yet picture-perfect. I know my loyal customers will only have eyes for the books!"



Bonnie's shop will be located in the basement space on 2nd Street between 2nd Avenue and Bowery, where she'll have plenty of room to stretch out. The East Village will be gaining another bookstore, thanks to the Johnstons.