New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Story continues for reading, performance space in New Haven
NEW HAVEN — They don’t call it Never Ending Books for nothing.
So if you heard late last year that the quirky, communityminded, one-of-a-kind reading and performance space at 810 State St., which Roger Uihlein and others kept alive for decades, was closing at the end of 2020 in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, well, that’s not the whole story.
Uihlein, who over the years amassed a rather large collection of books that he gives away — yes, gives away — to people who visit the combination store, music and art venue and community center, did decide to give up the physical space.
But his Never Ending Books mission will continue — and over the past few months a new group of people has coalesced to revive the space and keep the community center and performance space facets of Never Ending Books alive, several members said.
Right now, Never Ending Books, which occasionally has presented outdoor music on the sidewalk over the past year while its living room-like music room — with the warm, homey red curtains — has been dark, is open Saturdays and Sundays from 3 to 5 p.m. It’s available for the aforementioned free books, CDs and records and even an art swap, members of the new Never Ending Books Collective said.
There’s even a box with used sporting goods for people to take, if so inclined — or to put some for others.
When it’s safe to do so, collective members plan to continue its free-wheeling, stage-available-for-everyone event policy, which basically allows anyone who wants to put on a music, comedy or spoken word event to do so, with a piano, PA, lights and even a few drums and other stray instruments provided.
For many years, Never Ending Books provided a venue both for fledgling talent and bigger names such as Randy Burns, the New Haven-raised folk musician who remained one of the city’s leading voices even after leaving for New York’s Greenwich Village folk scene in the late 1960s.
The Never Ending Books Collective wants that to continue.
The collective is seeking guidance from Yale University’s Dwight Hall to form a nonprofit organization, members said. The group will take over the lease, most likely in May, with the support of Uihlein, the space’s landlord and more than 200 backers so far for a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for the venue’s first year’s rent, at the very least.
It turns out that at a time when high-rent midrise apartment buildings and chain shops and restaurants are sprouting like mushrooms in New Haven, the Greater New Haven community still values quirky, one-of-a-kind joints like Never Ending Books as much as the collective does.
After setting a goal of $12,500, they proceeded to eclipse that goal. As of Friday, they had raised $13,622 from 209 backers. The campaign will continue through March 31 at 11:59 p.m.
The original goal always was “a bare minimum,” said collective member Peter Cunningham, who lives in Hamden’s Whitneyville neighborhood, works at Yale’s Office of Public Affairs and organized the Kickstarter campaign.
“We kind of wanted to reach the bare minimum where we could pay the rent for a year ... and if we could use that year of rent to remain sustainable, all the better,” said Cunningham, who was joined Wednesday by fellow collective members Jessica LarkinWells, Jordanna Packtor, Conor Perrault and Jules Bakes, who is married to Cunningham.
Perrault, a Westville resident and librarian at Gateway Community College, said he had been booking shows at Never Ending Books for a couple of years and its quirkiness — and especially its welcoming role as a community gathering center under Uihlein’s leadership — “is a big part of what inspired me.”
As it moves forward, “It is his baby,” Perrault said.
Bakes, who works at the Center for International and Professional Experience at Yale University, said Never Ending Books is part of a disappearing element of New Haven, its small, independent, home-grown businesses and attractions that are being lost over time.
“Over the last decade, we’ve seen a lot of New Haven institutions close down and be replaced,” Bakes said, rattling off a list that included the York Square Theatre, News Haven, the old Anchor Bar, The Space and, she fears, Lyric Hall, which has been quiet and dark throughout the pandemic.
It warmed her to know that “so many people recognize the value” of Never Ending Books to the community.
“We’ve been pretty heartened by the support in the community,” said Cunningham. “The place means a lot to a lot of people.”
While there will be some minor changes — Packtor and Larkin-Wells have been organizing the books into categories, of late — this is a group of folks who love the Never Ending Books that Uihlein built, always with collective help from others.
“There’s just a lot of heart and community spirit in there,” Cunningham said. “I like that it’s not a commercial space. There’s no pretense of trying to sell anything or make any money with it . ... They’re not selling drinks there — or even books. It’s just there for people to share.
“... We’re going to try to keep it pretty much the same, in the same spirit,” said Cunningham, who has been going to Never Ending Books events and shows, and occasionally performing there, for years.
Uihlein “is not giving up Never Ending Books. He’s just giving up the space, and we’re taking over that,” Cunningham said. “Never Ending Books has always been kind of a collective thing.”
Uihlein, known for not having a cellphone or email, could not immediately be reached for comment.
The first efforts to put together a new organization to run the space had many more people but it gradually distilled down to a smaller, solid core of people.
“It’s just a commitment of time — and time is hard to come by for a lot of people,” said Larkin-Wells, who grew up in New Haven and now lives in Guilford.
The biggest difference between the Never Ending Books that has existed until now and the one that will rise out of the collective’s work and its collaboration with Uihlein “is becoming a business and 501(c)(3)” nonprofit, Larkin-Wells said.
Some of the collective’s members have known each other since their days at Southern Connecticut State University, while others met through their efforts to save Never Ending Books.
And they all love it for reasons both diverse and common.
Packtor, a young mother who grew up on Bishop Street off State and now lives in Hamden, where she is raising her 10-month-old “COVID baby,” River Tahlia, said her stepfather, Bob Gorry, occasionally plays music at Never Ending Books.
Bakes loves the fact that “it’s community-driven, not market-driven.”
Cunningham loves its “libertine spirit.”
“I think it’s gives people the opportunity to have this kind of freedom,” said Perrault.
While Never Ending Books still has limited hours, that should change soon — and even now, “we’re beginning to accept book donations,” said Larkin-Wells.
In the end, it is by no means a lock that the effort to save Never Ending Books will succeed — but the collective is willing to give it a try.
“That’s the challenge that we have ahead of us,” said Perrault. “Can we keep it going?”