Thursday, September 17, 2009

Marc Jacobs Books?

On a recent trip to the quickly vanishing Biography Bookshop of Bleecker Street, architects for the new Marc Jacobs store were already taking measurements--of the door, the walls, the nooks, the crannies. The body's not even cold. People were shopping for books around this tape measure that kept stretching across portions of the space. You could feel the shift in the air, the snappy, plasticky smell of designer eyewear and motorcycle jackets in Crayola colors. More fashion is coming, books are vanishing.

Or are they?



While browsing novels, I listened to the twitters in the air and the talk was surprising. Call it rumor, call it unsubstantiated flimflam, but what I heard was: Marc Jacobs is putting his own bookshop in this location.

10 comments:

EV Grieve said...

Are books the hot fashion accessory for 2010? Totes need to buy one then!

esquared™ said...

They'll be selling books that have sentences, which contains 140 characters or less.

Anonymous said...

Gallagher's is the real deal for fashion related books and magazines.

Can't find his website, but he is well known.

Anonymous said...

Not that I'm an advocate of Marc Jacobs or anything, but the guy is a local NYer who started out working in a consignment shop in the east village during the 80's.

I get the frustration of your favorite stores and shops closing down or relocating, but those that replace it are someone else's favorite stores, people you don't particularly care for, because rather than get to know people, you make assumptions based on their appearances or where they like to shop or what they may or may not be able to afford.

The neighborhoods in NY are constantly evolving, while the "luxification" is not really a good thing, it is an evolving city and it is not yours per se. The East Village has seen many faces and the one that commenters on this blog seem to crave is not a pretty one.

I know a lot of people are not happy with the changes over the past 10 years, but where were those people during the changes? They allowed a residential neighborhood to be left for ruins, become infested with drugs and violence. That's ripe for the picking of gentricfication. If the community had been sustainable developers would not have seen an opportunity.

There are also parallels between the frat guys and hipsters of today and the young residents of 30 years ago. Young people just people go out to bars, they drink and they make a lot of noise and they are a little clueless about their surroundings. When you get older you look back and think you were never like the kids of today.

A lot of people on this blog sound like bitter older people that are seeing the city and the world change and it scares them because they no longer can relate. It's like the older generation of the 50's that didn't understand the kids with their rock n roll or the those damn hippies that just want do drugs and have sex or the punk rockers with their spiked hair and loud music or heavy metal bands and their devil worship. It's all the same.

I used to like this blog to understand some of the past about this city, to learn where it's been, to check out some places that are still surviving, but it's just turned into an hating on places and people, that's annoying and I'm tuning this blog out.

I don't even know why I find myself commenting, it's just some anonymous blog where I am likely to be ridiculed for lack of grammar, or coherency in my comments left on a blog because that is what is important to people for some reason. I will be called a "yunnie" or a "yuppie" or whatever even though I'm neither, I'm just a mature adult that understands the east village and the city for that matter is not owned by anyone and will always change and evolve. Good or bad.

Well I'm deleting this site from favorites.

You Know It said...

they'll probably stock the olsen twins book, the sartorialist, sex and the city, maybe some "graphic novels" and maybe sell people weekly and purple magazine.

John Montanez said...

the second Anonymous is probably a young person posing as someone from the hood, when in fact he (most likely a he) is in fact from nowheresville, idaho. F him!!!

Anonymous said...

Ok, Im not happy about another Marc Jacobs venture, too much of anyone is annoying. My desire for comment is due to anon #2. I am old, and I do tend to complain, but I think that too is becoming annoying.
If we look back at history, and that of our city, everything tends to repeat an a circular manner. And neighborhoods do not stay trendy forever.
Granted we can not stand by and allow another Penn Station to happen. But I think we should start looking for the positive in the area's popularity. Heck, someone come up with a way to make money from this boom (in a non-sell out way, ha,ha).
Then we can use the money to get the "Move NYU to Governors Island" campaign up and running.......
People do spend a lot of time reading and complaining (myself included), lets focus our collective energy and start the campaign for the best idea EVER!

"NYU-Private college, on a private island"...parents would love the safety aspect, students would love the private island concept, and we know what we would love.

Jeremiah Moss said...

NYU on a private island sounds like an amazing idea. but how about North Brother instead of Governors Island?

Jeremiah Moss said...

i believe there is a moral imperative to think, speak, and write critically. not about people's personal lives--e.g., jacobs the person and what he does is none of my business--but about corporations like Marc Jacobs the business, as well as social phenomena, like how people behave as a group.

to shy away from that, to reduce it to "you're a hater," is to shrug away one's duty as a thinking human being.

Anonymous said...

marc jacobs went to fashion school, & worked for perry ellis. then did his own line. then was backed by the gigantic corporations & became a manufacturing dynasty, hes a merchandiser. the name sells. i do not care if he has 100 stores in new york. but keep most of them on 5ave & 50s. i do care also about the small businesses. the individuality of these neighborhoods. we may be in the minority, but some of us do want small boutiques owner operated, w/ interesting clothes, books, art etc. or just practical small shops, for everyday life. the landlords know that the corporations can pay 5 xs more rent. there goes the neigborhood! now they all look alike w/the same stuff. this is not evolvement, its DEvolvement. also chain stores bring lots of people to these residential areas. the west village is not a shopping mall, or is it???? there should be a definition between commercial & residential. jacobs can put his stores on ave. of the americas, 7th ave, the main streets which were already ruined 40 years ago. let people have some peace. i felt this way when i was 15! i suppose i was always "old".