West 8th Street

It’s hard to picture West 8th Street as anything other than a gauntlet of shoe stores, but in the 1950s and 60s it was one of the central drags for artists and writers in Greenwich Village. Where an upscale coffee shop now dispenses slow-pour brew, the Eighth Street Bookshop once held court — opened in 1947 by brothers Eli and Ted Wilentz at the corner of West 8th and MacDougal Streets.

The Wilentz brothers ran the shop as more than a bookstore. Struggling writers could use it as a mail drop, or pick up clerk shifts to supplement whatever meager income they had. The regular clientele included Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Marianne Moore, and E.E. Cummings — and it was here, at a party on the second floor in 1964, that Ginsberg first met Bob Dylan.

The Bookshop in its heyday, 1965. Photo by Katherine Knowles

After a fire nearly destroyed the store in 1976, New York’s literary community rallied financially to reopen it. But the momentum was gone — it finally closed in 1979. Stumptown Coffee now occupies 32 West 8th Street.

The space today. Photo courtesy of Stumptown Coffee.

Location: 32 West 8th Street