Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Brazenhead Books: A secret bookstore

by: Angela Hickman

When real estate prices in Manhattan got so out of hand that Michael Seidenberg could no longer afford the rent for his used book shop, he had two options: shut down Brazenhead Books, or move it somewhere else.

For a while he tried selling books at fairs and markets, but it just wasn’t for him, so he moved his wares into an Upper Eastside apartment and opened a secret bookstore.

The story of his secret New York book shop — it’s illegal to run a business from a residential space — is chronicled by Andrew David Weston as part of a series of short documentaries on Etsy, a website where small business owners and crafters can sell their wares through online shops.

The video shows an apartment completely transformed by the thousands of books Seidenberg has collected over the years. Seidenberg doesn’t advertise, of course, but if you want to do some sneaky shopping, you can look him up in the phone book.

Think of it as an old-timey Prohibition-era kind of thing, except that instead of calling in for the location of a speakeasy, Seidenberg will give you his shop’s address.

from: National Post

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