NEW YORK - New Year's Eve listed in mourning for book lovers in New York: the Strand, a historic second-hand bookshop a few steps from Union Square, has lost Ben McFall, its equally historic bookseller, who for decades had been a guide to customers in the labyrinth of its shelves.
Anyone, New Yorker or tourist, who has ever entered the Strand will surely have met the quiet African-American sitting at a desk at the end of the 'fiction' section in front of which they were queuing, to receive advice, aspiring readers.
A true Virgil in second-hand book heaven, McFall had had a career parallel to that of one of the very few independent bookstores left in New York: he had been hired on the spot in 1978 by the then owner, Fred Bass, eventually becoming the employee who had worked longer on his premises. At the time, entering the Strand meant meeting the bohemian of Downtown: the musician and poet Patti Smith, the writer Lucy Sante and Tom Verlain, the frontman of the Television band, worked there, among others, earning just enough to pay the rent. of lousy apartments, buy records and go out at night in the clubs. The Strand then sold exclusively used books, not like now which, in addition to shelves on the latest bestsellers, offers shopping bags,t-shirts and mugs for coffee with the logo. Unlike other employees outraged by the brand's commercialization, McFall, who died at 73 at his Jersey City home following a fall, welcomed the breakthrough, seeing it as necessary to keep the bookstore alive for over 40 years. it had been his second home. At the Strand, the book's "oracle" had a special place: unique among all the other employees, he had been given a desk and jurisdiction over the narrative section, the one that has always guaranteed the bookstore most of the proceeds. McFall was the "heart of that section," Nancy Bass Wyden, the current owner, said today, paying homage to the bookstore's "historical memory".McFall had a mind map of the 28 kilometers of shelves on the Strand and could tell exactly where a certain novel was at any time, and in how many copies and at what price, dominating an inventory estimated at over two million copies: "It seems like a feat. , but if it were your home, you too would know where things are ", the bookseller had shielded himself with the" New York Times "which in 2013 had dedicated a profile to him.
