Strand Book Store writes new chapter in storied
history while weathering COVID-19 storm
BY ROBERT POZARYCKI
During its fi rst 93 years in business,
Manhattan’s Strand Book Store
never had to endure a mass layoff.
Then the coronavirus pandemic hit New
York City.
“We survived the Depression, multiple
recessions, 9/11, even the rise of chain
bookstores and ebooks,” Strand owner
Nancy Bass Wyden said. “March was the
fi rst time in our history we were forced to
lay off a single employee.”
Calling it “the hardest decision I’ve ever
had to make as a business owner,” Wyden
remarked that Strand had no other choice.
The book store located on Broadway and
East 12th Street in the East Village — famous
for offering “18 miles of books” to
generations of devoted customers — closed
on March 16 out of an abundance of caution
for customers and staff alike.
Moreover, Strand closed down its warehouse
for a time and indefi nitely delayed
the opening of a second book store along
Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side.
The voluntary closure occurred a week
before New York state went on “PAUSE,”
which ordered non-essential businesses to
shut down. Like so many other shuttered
small businesses in New York City, Strand
took a signifi cant fi nancial hit — and had
PHOTO BY TODD MAISEL
The exterior of the closed Strand Book Store on April 20, 2020.
Students call on CUNY to freeze tuition during coronavirus pandemic
BY ALEJANDRA
O’CONNELL-DOMENECH
Undergraduate CUNY
students called on the
public university’s administration
to do away with another
annual tuition increase given the
fi nancial strains many students
are suffering due to the economic
impact of the novel coronavirus.
In December of last year,
the CUNY Board of Trustees
approved a $32o tuition hike
during a heated monthly meeting
fi lled with protesting students at
Baruch College in Manhattan.
The approved tuition increase
included a new $120 health and
wellness fee and a $200 annual
tuition fee for four-year colleges
and community colleges.
During the Zoom meeting on
Monday, students called on the
university system to fi nd ways to
provide students with resources to
be able to fi nish their educations
to reinvent itself a bit to cover some of their
losses.
Strand’s website launched 23 years ago
but was never considered a primary source
of the shop’s revenue. After the March
closure, Wyden said, the business hurried
to release an updated version of the site
allowing them to sell more books.
The online revenue allowed Strand
to rehire some of the 198 staff members
who were laid off, Wyden noted. But
she conceded that the online operation
is still not to the level of the traditional
on time instead of adding another
burden during shaky economic
times.
“This is going to create chaos,”
said Nicole Agu, Vice Chair for
International Student Affairs at
CUNY and student at the College
of Staten Island. “I am trying to
fi nish up my last academic year,
creating or approving another
tuition hike is going to waver my
hope for doing that.”
When the pandemic forced
her college and her part-times
jobs to shutter their doors, Agu
found herself without a home and
without an income. Like many
international students, Agu could
not escape to a parent or sibling’s
home when she was forced to
leave her dorm to that it could
be transformed into a temporary
medical facility.
“This created such an overwhelming
feeling,” said Abu. “I
was just thinking, where do I go?
How do I make it out?”Luckily,
brick-and-mortar business.
“While it’s certainly a move in the right
direction, we’re honestly not nearly close
enough to reaching our regular revenue,”
Wyden said in an interview with amNewYork
Metro. “The Strand’s success has been
rooted in the in-person retail experience,
so moving our customers online has been
challenging. That being said, we’re seeing
great results thus far, and I am so thankful
that our community has been so willing to
proactively support us.”
As they work to bounce back, Strand
People walk by a CUNY campus in the city.
the College of Staten Island
shipped Agu and a band of other
international students to dorms at
Queens College.
Margaret, a junior at City
College, also lost her part-time
job because of the pandemic. Although
she has been saved some
stress in the short-term by moving
back home with parents, she
doesn’t have to worry about one major
hurdle small business owners face: rent.
Wyden’s father, the late Fred Bass, bought
the building where Strand’s fl agship store
is housed back in 1996. The Landmarks
Preservation Commission made the structure
a landmark in 2019, against Wyden’s
objections.
Strand also received a loan through the
Paycheck Protection Program which has
“helped as much as it can,” Wyden said.
The store’s goal is to rehire all of the 198
laid off staff members as soon as possible.
When and how these workers will be
rehired will depend upon how the brickand
mortar store reopens once New York
City gets the all-clear to “reopen.” Wyden
said the store will follow Governor Andrew
Cuomo’s direction once the PAUSE
is lifted, and the store has already begun
mapping out a strategy to ensure customer
and staff safety.
“We will all be wearing masks, gloves,
and making sure there’s hand sanitizer
everywhere. We will adhere to social distancing
measures,” she added. “One thing we
haven’t worked out yet is how we can allow
our customers to browse freely in our 18
miles of books and have unlimited time to
get lost in the stacks.”
PHOTO COURTESY OF CUNY
is also afraid that she will not be
able to afford next year’s tuition.
Her family’s income excludes
her from work-study and although
she fi led her FAFSA as
an independent student she will
not be eligible for New York
State Tuition Assistance Program
known as TAP now that she lives
at home.
and implement additional cleaning
More at amny.com.
“It’s unacceptable for the Board
of Trustees to raise tuition for
next year,” she said. “There’s absolutely
no excuse when students
are facing unprecedented levels of
job loss and fi nancial insecurity.”
The tuition hike could be rescinded
when CUNY approves its
2020 fi scal year operating budget in
June. “No decisions have been made
about tuition for next year,” CUNY
Chancellor Felix Matos Rodríguez
said in an interview with NY1.
“We are all for example lobbying
very hard for the federal government
to do its part and provide
aid to the states. That aid to the
states would be crucial. So we are
waiting to see what the landscape
is closer to the end of June when
we have to enact our budget to
make that decision.”
Matos told NY1 that whether
or not the state gets aid from the
federal government would play a
large roll in what is passed in the
CUNY budget in June.
22 May 21, 2020 Schneps Media
/amny.com
