Fans write new a chapter for alley bookseller
I’ll bet you a quarter that the things you remember best in San Francisco are the small things — one of those block-long alleys with a surprise at the end; a nice little neighborhood restaurant you discovered; your first apartment, just a studio but all yours; or maybe a small smile you didn’t expect.
Little things mean a lot, as the old song goes. So when one of those small pieces of the city goes away, you notice. It’s like a light going out.
Not long ago it looked like G.F. Wilkinson, the bookseller on Trinity Place, an alley in the Financial District, was going out of business. Bookstores used to be part of the fabric of the city, like sidewalk flower stands. Times change, old bookstores close, and there are no new ones to replace them.
But the G.F. Wilkinson story is different. A group of regular customers formed a kind of book collective, took over the shop, celebrated with a big party in the little alley and are open for business.
The bookstore is really a stall in the style of the booksellers on the banks of the Seine in Paris. There are three stalls, with glass doors. There are a couple of movable bookcases outside. The stalls themselves are each 14 feet long and 2 feet deep.
The store, the last used bookstore in the Financial District, will continue to offer used and out-of-print books.
The guiding light was George F. Wilkinson himself, a tall man with a gray beard whom everyone calls Rick.
He has a long history in the dusty business of old books. He ran Albatross Books in the Tenderloin for 33 years until it closed. He also had an online business, and when the space on Trinity Place became available six years ago, he took it. It was a oneman show.
Wilkinson, an amiable man who enjoys easy conversations with passersby, was the entire staff and management.
G.F. Wilkinson soon became an institution on Trinity Place, which runs from Bush to Sutter streets. The alley, lined with unpretentious restaurants, is made for strolling. Like nearby Claude Lane and Belden Place, Trinity helped give the neighborhood a European flavor.
“I’m here almost every day, and it’s a pleasure just to walk by and talk to Rick, and maybe buy a book,” said Barry Tagawa, an attorney who works nearby. “It’s kind of intellectual fun.”
After a while, however, it wasn’t so much fun for Wilkinson himself. “I love the people, but, you know, running this business by myself looks easy, but it isn’t,” he said. “I had to be here all the time, and lugging all those boxes of books around gets old.”
He’s 66 now and thinks it’s time for something else.
When Wilkinson let it be known he was considering moving on, regular customers were in shock, and then in mourning. Bookstores are an endangered species.
But the bookstore’s regulars took action. Ten of them formed a collective, organized by Natalia Kresich, who is 29 and works in nonprofits.
She was fond of stopping by the little shop on her lunch hour.
“I love this alley,” she said. “It’s kind of a magical little place. I would sit on a stool right here and read a book.”
The bookshop, she thought, was like an oasis in the desert — the sort of thing worth saving.
“We formed a collective ... to see if we could take over from Rick.”
One of the members is Alejandro Murguía, who has been the city’s poet laureate. There are also a couple of graduate students, a law student and a film teacher, among others.
“More than half of us were born and raised in San Francisco,” Kresich said, “and the other half have lived here for a long time.” Kresich herself is a native San Franciscan. She feels that is important.
There will be a few changes in the operation. One of the stalls will be a newsstand, offering local publications; another will have some art, or political posters. There will be monthly poetry readings — Murguía was the October poet. They are working with City Lights Books to showcase new publications. Maybe a film festival.
The operation, called 34 Trinity Arts and News, is designed to preserve G.F. Wilkinson Books, and Rick Wilkinson’s books will still be for sale. Wilkinson himself promises to come by, but not as often as before.
The launch party was held on Friday the 13th of October at Escape from New York Pizza, just across the alley. It went on for hours. “It was so much fun,” Kresich said.
“It’s a great opportunity,” she said. “When it came up, we thought, ‘Why not?’ ”