Great Books
A meeting 3,000 miles from home reminds Steven Hann of the importance of his work.
"Five years ago, I went to Berkeley to visit a friend. A girl comes to me and said, 'You told me to read Hart Crane, and I loved him so much, now I'm doing my Masters at him! , '"Says Hann." That really showed me that I made a difference to someone. And I think it's important that you make a viable connection with the community.”
Far from an inspired recommendation during a professor’s office hours, this grad student’s fateful tip-off took place in front of what is now Milano Market, where Hann has been selling books off and on since 1974. A self-described “area book purveyor and general curmudgeon,” Hann displays a handpicked selection of science fiction and mystery-laden pleasure reading alongside more academic and theoretical books. The set-up is inherently interpersonal; customers inevitably become entangled in conversations about fiction, neighborhood gossip, haggling wars, and contentious debates over Hann’s fold-up table.
In 1999, sociologist Mitchell Duneier published Sidewalk, a compelling ethnography of sidewalk book vendors on Sixth Avenue. The book grounds Duneier’s own observations and interviews in theory, demonstrating how the actions, personalities, and relationships between these vendors shaped public space in downtown Manhattan. He centers the book around Jane Jacobs’ dictum in The Death and Life of Great American Cities: that public characters offer eyes upon the street to discreetly maintain norms. Duneier’s research was conducted 15 years ago, fresh on the heels of New York’s crack epidemic and Giuliani’s “broken windows” crusade. Today’s New York is markedly different: We are witnessing Bloomberg’s controversial third term and the public protest of New York’s financial sector through the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Late Monday night, the NYPD and the Department of Sanitation cleared the OWS protesters from Zuccotti Park, making 150 arrests. Perhaps one of the more symbolically startling casualties of the eviction: 5,554 donated books the movement had organized into a library that operated on the honor system were taken away in dumpsters. Bloomberg later announced that Occupiers could pick up their “property” from the Department of Sanitation, but volunteers looking to reorganize the library in Foley Square report on their blog a significantly diminished and damaged inventory. Earlier in the weekend, book vendor Fred Woolfolk, who sells and sleeps near Duane Reade on 111th Street, had his property—including the inventory of books he sells for income—seized by the 26th police precinct during the night after a neighborhood resident repeatedly complained about his presence on the street.
Where Cani Print The Merchandise King - News
I'll get people who can. I know people who can. I'm also a member of PEN — it's a writers union”—before being distracted by two young students professing their love of Terry Pratchett. It's hard to tell which is more frequent: opinions expressed by