Robin's Bookstore opens a new chapter

If you checked out the signs last week in the windows at 108 S. 13th St., they mostly signaled wrapping up, ending, finis - what you'd expect at historic Robin's Bookstore, which shut down Jan. 31.

"For lease 1300 sq. feet," announced one street-level notice. Another advised: "Attention, UPS, FedEx, Postal Service: WE ARE HERE, and expecting packages. Please ring button #1. . . ."

But a close look revealed this harbinger of hope:

"We will be closed the next two weeks, Feb. 1 to Feb. 15, for necessary renovation work. Robin's will reopen Feb. 16th, in our new home on the second floor. Bargain books, discount magazines, cultural programs. For more info, www.robinsbookstore.com.";

Well, it's Re-Opening Day.

As Larry Robin chatted inside his upstairs space last week amid stacked metal tables, upside-down bookshelves, freshly sanded floors, and milk crates stuffed with Marvel Comics, the 66-year-old impresario of local literary events sounded anything but down for the count.

"It's a space shared by two organizations," he exulted, arms flailing, presenting the new Robin's: 1,000 square feet of stage and audience area, 2,000 square feet for the used-book store.

"This space from that wall on is the Moonstone Arts Center," he explained, leading a visitor along. "It'll have cultural events five nights a week. Book readings. Music events. Theater. Silent movies with a live acoustic piano."

Tonight, Philadelphia Stories, a writers education group, will hold the first of eight sold-out workshops in the Moonstone space. Coming soon are an Ides of March event and activities in honor of Tom Paine. The bookstore, whose address is now 110A S. 13th St., will be open from 11 to 7, except Sundays.

Veteran bookseller on the way out? Make that force of nature headed back in: the white-haired, wildly bearded Energizer Bunny of the Left, encased in a human form that mixes one part Santa Claus, one part Jerry Garcia, one part (well, maybe more than one part) Karl Marx.

Yet Robin, outlining his future as he sat with longtime friend and store general manager Paul Hogan, 71 - the two pals have worked together for 40 years - acknowledged how times are a-changin' for anyone involved with selling books.

"We survived the chain stores," Robin said. "We survived the discounters. We even survived Amazon. What we haven't survived is thousands of people going online and selling the book they just read."

"It has cut into the traffic to such a point," he continued, "that the business model of running a bookstore - probably the business model of all retail - is broke." The recession delivered the coup de grace.

A recent New Yorker cartoon, he noted ruefully, captured the situation. It shows a bookstore, an apartment above it, and a postman delivering an Amazon box to the person in the apartment.

"You go on Amazon," explained Robin, "and here's a brand-new book, it's not even out yet, and it says, 14 copies, new and used, for only $4.99. . . . I haven't received the book in my bookstore yet, and there's a $4.99 copy of a $25 book already out there!"

Result? No more new books at Robin's, except when linked to a reading. Dropping street-level space means Robin will need to pull in only $10,000 a month, rather than $50,000 or more, to survive.

The arts center emerged from Robin's view that "the traditional author presentation isn't working." Robin credits Philadelphia writer L.A. Banks, who told him about a Chicago club event, complete with cover charge, cash bar, hors d'oeuvres, dancing, and five authors, that drew 150 people and rocked.

What works, he believes, "are social events that include books, not book events." That's what got him thinking about "the old concept of the salon."

The old concept of Robin's began when his grandfather opened the store at 21 N. 11th St. in 1936. It moved to 6 N. 13th St. in 1960 when Robin, after high school, started to work nights in the store while aspiring by day to become a sculptor.

"We moved two blocks every 20 years until we bought this building," Robin recalled - the move to the current site came in 1981. In better times, Robin's expanded to four stores, including one in the Reading Terminal Market.

For Hogan, husband of Inquirer editorial board member and columnist Trudy Rubin, who bought comics as a kid from Robin's father at the N. 11th St. store, sticking with his pal made immediate sense. "He infects you with a cause," said Hogan. "That's why I've been here so long. It would be just a job if it weren't for Larry's ideas, and events planning, and all the rest."

Robin's street-level space will go to Marcie Turney and Valerie Safran, two dynamic businesswomen who already own four upscale enterprises on the 100 block of South 13th. They plan to put in a gardening and plant store.

Robin said having to lay off employees was the worst part of the transition. At one time, the stores boasted 15 employees. Then that fell to six. Now it will be two.

But Robin, true to his unconventional, semi-capitalist persona, doesn't dwell on the end of selling new books as a purely business matter.

"It's not a bad thing to be able to recycle," he mused. "It's not a bad thing to communicate. It's not a bad thing to share. . . . The answer isn't throwing your wooden shoe in the machine. It's 'What will the new model be?' "