Posted on 12/09/2018 12:48:03 PM PST by Kaslin
I feel sacrilegious for invoking such numinous phrases, but it’s hard to think of a better personal metaphor for the Strand, New York City’s iconic bookstore located in Greenwich Village. Visiting the store is its own pilgrimage for any starved bibliophile. In a world of Amazon shipping and the $.01 paperback, Strand is an oasis, offering a rarified shopping experience that slakes our need for spontaneity through the adventitious wandering of stacks. The atmosphere begs for browsing books, both old and new. It’s anonymous and crowded, like a self-contained city.
And, as everything else in our harried age, it’s in danger of going under; but, thankfully, not for lack of business. Rather, it’s meddlesome government regulators who are threatening the Strand’s financial viability.
The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission is considering whether or not to designate the Strand a city landmark, protecting the store from financial marauders who want to scoop up its valuable real estate. But, in a bit of Shakespearean irony, the iconic bookstore is threatened by those charged with its preservation.
Strand’s current owner, Nancy Bass Wyden, wife of Oregon senator Ron Wyden, is not letting her liberalism balance the books. “By landmarking the Strand, you can also destroy a piece of New York history. We’re operating on very thin margins here, and this would just cost us a lot more, with this landmarking, and be a lot more hassle,” Wyden told the Commission during a public hearing.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
“Where did the money to purchase this “landmark” originate. Certainly, not an Oregon Senator’s Salary.”
She’s the 3rd generation owner.
.
What makes you think she runs the bookstore? Probably an absentee owner, only getting involved to try to save her high-profile (among her NYC friends) property.
Who knew Wyden had a wife I always thought he was a homo
“...shopping experience that slakes our need for spontaneity through the adventitious wandering of stacks.”
I’d say she used the word incorrectly. The adventiousnes is in finding things as one one wanders, but the wandering is planned.
"We govern the little people - we don't feel any need to actually live among them. I mean, their homes are filled with animal droppings...and guns! It's beastly!" :)
Well New York City isn’t that far from DC. They probably live close to DC or maybe New York. I fail to see why you are surprised?
once something is on a state let alone federal register there are a slew of things that must, AND, cannot under any circumstances, be done in their upkeep and remodeling by law
Bitten by the snake they train to bite us! SCHADENFREUDE to the max.
The author couldn’t spell “rarefied” correctly, though.
Adventitious means unplanned.
It is just an assumption by the author that she’s a lefty but since she’s married to Ron Wyden it is probably a good assumption. However, even as a lefty it’s not surprising that she embraces free market principles when it comes to her business. Let’s face it, Liberals are the most conservative people I know when it comes to their own money. They are also the most generous people I know when dealing with everyone else’s money.
As an aside, he makes reference to comparing her to Dagney Taggart from Atlas Shrugged. While I like a lot of what Ayn Rand had to say (the whole atheism stuff not so much) I found both the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged to be tediously long and preachy for my tastes. I mean only Rand could take a whole chapter for the John Galt speech in Atlas Shrugged and the Howard Roark speech in Fountainhead. With massive slashing of soliloquies these could both be great movies. There was a version of Fountainhead starring Gary Cooper in the 40’s that was pretty good. I don’t think the Atlas Shrugged movie was that good simply because not enough resources was put into it. It was a B movie right from the start.
the Strand, New York City’s iconic bookstore located in Greenwich Village... in danger of going under... The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission is considering whether or not to designate the Strand a city landmark... Strand’s current owner, Nancy Bass Wyden, wife of Oregon senator Ron Wyden... “By landmarking the Strand, you can also destroy a piece of New York history. We’re operating on very thin margins here, and this would just cost us a lot more, with this landmarking, and be a lot more hassle,” Wyden told the Commission during a public hearing.
I guess we know who some of the "financial marauders" are.
The Strand is an irreplaceable treasure. I spent many an hour there in my NYC days, lived a few blocks away.
In many ways it is a canary in the coal mine for NYC - if The Strand can’t survive there, a whole lot of NYC culture is probably already gone.
You just won this thread of....Comments...nothing more needs to be said.
Not that the folks from Portland, Eugene or liberal suburbs would mind, in fact they’re probably jealous that the Wyden’s can live among the enlightened elite, but I do wonder how many other Oregonians know and are cool with it. Wyden and his ilk have turned Portland, the city that was going to show the world the virtues of mass transit, liberalism and liberal freedoms to the world, into something bordering on the Hunger Games.
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