ABSTRACT
A s Jaap Reitman epitomized traditional bookstore-sellingin SoHo, the poet Steve Dalachinsky has represented since 1976 the activity of alternative peddling on the rent-free sidewalks, usually on Spring Street between Wooster and Greene, most recently across from Reitman’s terminal location. With only a table and merchandise kept in his apartment a few blocks away, he has for more than a quarter-century displayed a selective stock of records, beat literature, and his own books. Beside him often, especially on weekends, is Harry Nudel, a truer antiquariat, as the Germans would say, who keeps his stock of quality literature in his nearby residential loft. As far back as the 1970s, SoHo’s street merchants offered classier stuff than, say, those around Sixth Avenue south of 8th Street, who had disparate collections of books mostly gleaned, I’m told, from those recently deceased; or those around St. Marks Place in the East Village, who were recycling stolen merchandise. (The neighborhood joke in the East Village was that if your apartment was robbed, you could usually find your former personal possessions on a nearby street
the next week.) By contrast, the street booksellers outside the NYU Bobst Library opposite the southeast corner of Washington Square have a more selective stock designed to appeal to students.
