Another enjoyable and (relatively) easy year at the Lombardy, our third.
We did a good deal of sitting around and talking up in Suite #605, including talking about book fairs, how Trump would affect this one, and what the future might bring. Someone, I forget who, made the interesting point that we wouldn’t even need a promoter to have a Lombardy Hotel Book Fair in 2026. All we’d need is for another half dozen dealers to take suites at the hotel. The management has always been great to work with, eager for our trade, so a floor or floors occupied by 5 or 10 dealers and accessed by guest and service elevators would not be a major logistical problem. The salient point is that each of us would benefit from buyers attracted by other dealers. So, friends, if you’re looking for an alternative to the Armory, this is a pretty good one. The rest is up to you.
Here’s how we got there…
July 20, 2021 … Trying to figure out what to do about New York 2022, which is finally scheduled to go forward. $8750 for a single smallest booth, no sharing. Fuck that. Hotel nearby with suitcases full of books?
ABAA Virtual Book Fair July 22nd, then a Marvin Virtual, then live Papermania. Covid has wandered off somewhere. We’ve returned to our village after the catastrophe, and it’s good to be back, but things have shifted somehow, and that’s uncomfortable. Main St. runs east-west rather than north-south
April 7, 2022 …Working through the second tranche of Vietor South Pacific material and feeling pretty good about our NY hotel idea – Signed up for the Flamingo Shadow Show and reserved a suite at the Lombardy Hotel, a lovely old historical heap discovered by Anya, just 10 blocks down Park Ave. from the Armory – $400 a nite. Looks good on the website, but don’t they all?
May 1, 2022 …Did $50-60K in NY, most of it at the Lombardy, maybe $10 of that at the Shadow Show. A satisfactory result compared to some of the stinkers I’ve had during my career at the Armory. With $4K overhead rather than $10K. But this hotel room gambit worked because I had good material (mostly Vietor material mixed in with rares I’d stashed away), and a pretty good idea who would buy it. That was what all my years of money angst at the big show brought me. Customers. So even the bad years weren’t in vain (he bleated bravely, vainly).
January 1, 2023 …challenges for this coming year are finding enough good books to make our soiree at the Lombardy Hotel work.
Of course, got to do California first. The buying there will determine more. Pretty much decided that this will be my last year of doing the big fairs. Or maybe I’ll just shop them all and consider them vacations with Anya.
May 7, 2023 All I can say is “I don’t remember what the hell I was whining about but it must’ve all come out okay because here I am in [son] Brooks’s Vermont ski chalet…”
Or maybe after thawing out my forgotten unfinished Gentleman Jack – purchased for, but never opened at our commercial affair in a suite at the Lombardy Hotel and taken up here to ski country, where it has provided several stiff shots on ice for two nights, of which this frosty delight is the last. Of all the many whiskeys and their brands, I remember Gentleman Jack because I’d bought a bottle on a whim and liked it, then bought a few more, so that when Rusty and Veta Mott stayed at our house I happened to have a bottle on hand, which I put on the table between Rusty and me (Veta and Anne Marie having gone on to a subject vastly more interesting than that occupying their macho idiot husbands, whatever that subject may have been…) whereupon we set to work, Rusty drinking me under the table, but me punching above my weight from down there
… NY much less stressful in the hotel, same as last year. Actually felt a little PTSD walking the aisles of the Armory Thursday night. Elevated heartbeat and sweats, recalling all those sleepless “why did/didn’t I buy that?” Unpleasant all around.
Grossed $71K at the Lombardy and shadow show, this year – a good deal of it mine. My one fuckup was selling that Reid’s American Atlas too cheap. Maritime list 326 out this afternoon with much of the leftovers, then settle up with my consignors, do some garden work, go to the gun cocktail party with Brooks to meet Dante Scar, then head for Cape Breton on the 19th or 20th.
January 1, 2024 (New Year’s Resolution #4) Got to figure out New York… if it’s feasible to do the Lombardy, or just go down for the shadow show.
March 4, 2024 I thought it was going to be a more difficult decision, but I played it by the book. Which is to say, the book made the decision for me.
Actually, it was the books, plural – or the lack thereof – that made me decide to pull the plug on the Park Avenue hotel suite as this year’s New York Book Fair venue. Unlike the past few years, I just didn’t have the stock this time to justify a week at the Lombardy. And I sure as hell didn’t have enough rare material to make the Armory show seem feasible – not when I’d have to sell $10,000 or more just to break even.
Oh, I’ve still got plenty of interesting stuff to take to New York. But by the time I’d finished with the California book fairs last month, I’d sold all my best material. I realized then that, if nothing big happened in the next few weeks I’d have to cancel my reservation at the Lombardy. And that was exactly what happened. Or didn’t happen.
April 3, 2024 Last Armory show I did was 2019. Made a total of $3160 against expenses of about $10K – People at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair 2019 were NOT buying what I was selling. I remember thinking, “There HAS to be a better way to do this!” Also spent about $10K on material purchased at the 3 NY shows. Next year, 2020, did the last Marvin show THEN THE NEXT WEEK – COVID.
April 7, 2024 No Lombardy this year. Up early after an uncharacteristically sleepless night (shades of past Armory Angst!). Figured, “Well, let’s get this over with” and had a lovely walk through an early spring morning in Central Park.
Took my drugs, pasted my smile on, and made about $20K in my up-front booth at the Flamingo Shadow Show. Found a good parking spot when it was over and loaded out effortlessly. Whereupon Anya and I looked at one another and were like, “Why push our luck?” Blew off our Saturday night hotel reservation and drove straight home, feeling like Bonnie & Clyde. Well, actually, Anne Marie and Greg.
April 7, 2025 Total sales at suite plus shadow show – $57,642. Purchases at Armory and Shadow $3455. Book Fair Total (per Weinstein Rule) $61,097. The world seems upside down when I sell more than I buy.
I remember sitting there Friday night after everyone had left thinking, “I can’t believe it took me 49 years to figure this out.”
Hey Greg, thanks for keeping my name alive. I’ll turn 75 this month so I guess any day I can see, hear, or recognize my name is a good one. What was I saying… oh right, glad you finally figured out how to make NY work for you. I hope others follow your lead. That’s a helluva idea. I recall someone doing that same thing when I ran the Ephemera Society fair taking a room upstairs in the hotel. That was his last year as a member after they kicked him out. I’ll never forget my last NY show in 2020 at the 84th st Church where you were up front with a couple bottle of hand sanitizer on your counter. You were very busy as I recall (handing out tissues). That show was hopping even while Cuomo was declaring a state of emergency. I heard the armory was also hopping last weekend which is good for the business. I’m very happy promoting my virtual fairs, not getting all stressed out before each show, playing with my grandkids, and training for my next Pan Mass Challenge ride. Good luck with the century, from one biker to another.
Greg, happy to be, as you wrote, “immortal.” Your story is fairly close. We arrived just about drinks time, and you said you had Gentleman Jack, and did I like whiskey, to which I said no. You said “that’s all I drink, so that’s all I stock.” So, what’s a fella to do—I said yes to Gentleman Jack. I was rather circumspect, and you, I suppose as plank owner of the bottle, did it justice. In the A. M. I was fine, you not so much. But, Veta and I became Gentleman Jack drinkers for awhile, before discovering Larceny Bourbon, and switching over to that smooth flavor. We thank you for converting us! Happy Birthday Marvin–it must be nice to be so young. I turned 80 in February.
Still waiting to get a consensus view of sales at NY and shadow fairs. We have done done either because of the high overhead costs coming from the west coast.
I would not deign to argue with Rusty and Veta’s choice of tipple, but it’s not my indulgence, not that flavor anyway. As to an individual room fair at the Lombardy or other hotel, one is reliant on the ten or so that matter coming to visit you and your wares. Next year, there are eight, and two others are kind of hauling back on the stick. Maybe you’re missing nothing at the other fairs, but you don’t know and you can’t, except in your imagination, or with the assist of a good Bourbon. On the other hand, pleasant days in a decent hotel sound better than a fair floor on a quiet day.