The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
‘THE DOORS ARE OPEN’ By Mark Zaretsky
Ninth Square entrepreneurs turn former Horowitz Bros. warehouse into performance center
NEW HAVEN — Two musically minded Ninth Square entrepreneurs, Slate Ballard and Carlos Wells, have revived a longdormant downtown space into a 250-person capacity performance center — The State House — that aims to book acts that would otherwise pass New Haven by.
If you are under a certain age, you can be forgiven if you can’t immediately identify the location from a verbal description: The former warehouse backs up to Ballard’s former co-working business, The Grove, in a block bounded by State, Chapel, Orange and Crown streets.
But if you’ve been around New Haven awhile, you know that the Horowitz Brothers fabric store was closed in 2004.
Since then, it has been one of those nondescript brick buildings that you could see as the backdrop of a State Street parking lot, without any indication of what was within the walls.
But, for the past few
“We want to try to tap into that market that’s currently being overlooked.” Carlos Wells
weeks since its oft-delayed soft opening on Aug. 16, The State House has been quietly bringing in some world music: hip-hop, hard care and avant-garde acts that chances are you won’t see anywhere else around here.
Local entrepreneur Rick Omonte, who formerly booked shows at BAR, is on board as the talent booker and they also have worked with some independent produces, including Fernando Pinto Presents and Tiny Box Booking. You also can expect to see poetry slams and other events in the months to come.
Several early shows had to be moved to The Grove and other venues because work on The State House — which originally was to have opened June 12 — wasn’t quite finished enough to satisfy city inspectors.
But this past week, The State House held its grand opening, with a grand opening show on Friday featuring The Let Loose and The Quest Presents. With liquor permit in hand, they are open for business.
“We want to try to tap into that market that’s currently being overlooked,” said Wells, owner of Safety Meeting Records, who spent years managing the bar at Firehouse 12 on Crown Street and previously worked at Cafe Nine and the old Rudy’s.
“We want to bring some more world music into this space, do a little hip-hop,” Wells said during a conversation inside The State House one afternoon last week.
They’re even going to try out some comedy, which is being brought in by Between Two Rocks.
The idea to open The State House came a couple of years ago while Ballard,
Duda is planning a 20th birthday celebration to thank his customers who have supported him through all the changes and challenges. Because the all-day-long celebration is on Saturday, Oct. 27, four days before Halloween, Duda is going with a Halloween-theme party. Anybody dressed as his or her favorite literary character or author will get a $5 gift certificate. The wearer of the best costume will be handed a $100 gift certificate. And anyone who has ever bought a book there can get a free book.
“You need a community to support this,” Duda said. “It takes a village. We’re grateful to everyone who’s kept us around for 20 years.”
In addition to having loyal customers, how has he survived? It takes a lot of hard work, the proper setting (next to Yale), a good staff and timing.
For example: when Duda opened and was dealing with that welcome-to-the-neighborhood shooting, he knew time was on his side. “I had learned Yale was moving its art school to the old Jewish Community Center building up the street. This block was empty storefronts. It was me, Group W Bench and a couple of others.”
Duda envisioned the food component being just pastries and coffee. But in came Seth Cloutman, a gourmet cook, who set up first-class soup, sandwiches and salads. Those high standards remain. The current chef, Leo Zimmerman, has worked at award-winning restaurants in Baltimore and Seattle.
The names of the sandwiches on the menu reflect a literary sensibility: “A tale of two turkeys,” “Hamingway & cheese,” “Melville’s tuna F’Ishmael,” “Jane Rare,” “Feast of Eden” and “Vonnegut’s veggies.”
Duda had managed restaurants in his native state of Pennsylvania as well as working at bookstores in Philadelphia. After he moved to New Haven in 1993, he worked at Book Haven on York Street and an Atticus Bookstore & Cafe secondary outlet on Chapel Street near the New Haven Green.
“There were five other used bookstores in New Haven when we opened,” he noted. “We’re the only one left.”
Duda added, “I wouldn’t encourage anyone to get into the book business at this point. It’s harder every year. It’s just really hard competing with the internet.”
But there are compensations, especially getting to know interesting and inspiring people. The prime example: playwright August Wilson, who spent a lot of time in New Haven when the Yale Repertory Theatre was staging his plays illuminating the African-American experience. Wilson became a regular at The Book Trader Cafe.
Indeed, when I interviewed Duda last Wednesday afternoon at the outdoor eating area, I was remembering the day about 15 years ago when I was having lunch there and noticed Wilson sitting in the table next to me, in deep conversation with a friend or another reporter.
“I got to know him really well,” Duda said. “That was one of my greatest pleasures of being here.”
He recalled Wilson spent virtually the entire summer of 2005 at The Book Trader. Wilson was writing what would be his last play, “Radio Golf,” at those outdoor tables.
“He and James Bundy (dean of the Yale School of Drama and artistic director of the Yale Repertory Theatre) were out here, feverishly working on it.”
Duda didn’t know Wilson that summer had been diagnosed with liver cancer. He would die in October of that year.
“He was a really generous soul,” Duda said. “Very intelligent and very well-read. He could talk about any playwright or poet. But he still had time
“We’re part of the culture. We’re an environment where there’s more than retail going on. You can talk to somebody about literature.” David Duda, owner of The Book Trader Cafe in New Haven
to chat — which is touching in hindsight.”
Duda also got to know the actor Paul Giamatti, a New Haven native who returned here to do the lead in “Hamlet.”
Besides occasionally glimpsing celebrities, customers can pick up some money by bringing in their used books or CDs or DVDs. For many years, I have been bringing boxes of my no-longer-needed books to The Book Trader. You simply drop them off at the counter, with your name and phone number written on the box, then wait for Duda to call and let you know how much he will pay you in cash or restaurant credit. Duda believes his is the only store in the New Haven area that gives cash for used books.
Here’s another thing I like about it: Duda doesn’t ask you to come back to retrieve the books he doesn’t accept for re-sale. He donates them to the book bank of the fabulous community tutoring resource New Haven Reads or to local libraries or Goodwill donation centers.
“One reason I started this business is I’m a big environmentalist,” Duda said. “Recycling books helps (the environment). I won’t throw away a book unless it’s moldy. Most people want their old books to go to a good home and that’s what we do.”
He accepts for re-sale about one-third of the books that come in. “I go through about 1,000 books a week. That’s 50,000 a year. So we’ve probably seen about 1 million books in our 20 years and sold about 300,000.”
Yes, when you walk into the store you see piles of books on the counter to your left. Around the corner sit boxes of more books. All of them await Duda’e eye and verdict. He works 80-100 hours a week, sometimes going through the books in his garage at his home in Guilford.
“Part of my stress comes from knowing if I work more, we make more money,” he said.
In addition to the work stress, Duda has dealt with prostate cancer, thyroid cancer, a broken hip, a shattered kneecap and divorce. But he told me, “Being a good father to my two daughters is my greatest pleasure and what I’m proudest of. My kids are the most important part of my life. Then comes the store.”
But Duda knows his business is an important part of Greater New Haven, a place to be treasured, such as, he noted, Cutler’s Records (dearly missed) and Best Video (hang on!). “We’re part of the culture. We’re an environment where there’s more than retail going on. You can talk to somebody about literature.”
Duda worries that people are losing the habit of reading amid “the morass of instant gratification.” But he figures that if parents keep reading to their kids and the reading habit is passed on, “maybe we’ll still be around.”