Gotham Book Mart
The Gotham Book Mart was a famous Midtown Manhattan bookstore and cultural landmark that operated from 1920 to 2007. It moved from a basement space on West 45th Street to 41 West 47th Street in the Diamond District, and later to 16 East 46th Street. The store wasn’t just for buying books; it was a lively place where poets, authors, artists, and visitors gathered for readings, art shows, and conversations. Its distinctive sign over the door read “Wise Men Fish Here,” created by John Held Jr.
Frances Steloff opened the store on January 1, 1920. Her husband suggested the name and the sign motto, inspired by Washington Irving. Steloff ran the shop as a sanctuary for new, experimental, and avant-garde literature. The Gotham helped get banned books into readers’ hands and protected Anaïs Nin’s works when she fled Paris. It became a meeting place for many writers and artists, including the James Joyce Society, founded there in 1947.
Steloff’s tough, quality-focused leadership helped the store thrive. She lived above the shop, later sold the apartment to book lover Andreas Brown but stayed on as a consultant. The store earned praise from authors and filmmakers: Arthur Miller called it an invaluable resource for older literature, and Woody Allen said it captured the ideal bookshop in many people’s minds.
After Steloff died in 1989, Brown lived in the apartment above the shop. The shop was full of photos of famous visitors and clever literary jokes. The Gotham also became closely tied to the work of Edward Gorey; it published many of his books and hosted exhibitions and signings. Brown later became a coexecutor of Gorey’s estate after Gorey’s death in 2000.
In 2006 the store fell behind on rent, and eviction proceedings began. The inventory was seized in 2007, and the store closed soon after. A large portion of the stock, valued around $3 million, was sold in a single bid of about $400,000.
In 2008, the University of Pennsylvania received more than 200,000 items from the Gotham’s inventory. Penn planned to catalog and digitize the collection and use it for teaching and public events. In 2019, Penn displayed part of the Gotham collection in an exhibit called “Wise Men Fish Here.”
The longest-running Gotham location, 41 West 47th Street, had a long history of ownership and financial changes. Steloff bought the building in 1946, later giving Brown the option to buy it back. Brown bought it back in 1988 for about $1 million, and various lawsuits and sales followed. In 2004 Brown reopened the store as The Gotham Book Mart & Gallery at 16 East 46th Street, with the building leased back to him after a purchase and arrangement to help the shop continue. The Nobel Prize committee and many other literary figures relied on Gotham for rare and important works.
The Gotham Book Mart left a lasting mark as a renowned place for books, ideas, and cultural exchange, and its influence lives on in collections, exhibits, and the memories of those who shopped and worked there.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 11:42 (CET).