“THIS IS NOT THE END, IT IS NOT EVEN THE BEGINNING OF THE END, BUT IT IS… THE END OF THE BEGINNING.” —Winston Churchill
Today is the day — our last official day at our original location, Park Avenue Plaza, 55 East 52nd Street, NYC. We would like to write more about our new destination, but the leasing gods (also known as lawyers) continue to inhibit us. Let’s just say, we will not be moving far and leave it at that.
For today, we look back, rather than forward. To all of you who have supported Chartwell Booksellers for the past 43 years, thank you. Don’t stop!
We will be filling orders through the coming months of our move, including SALE books. And we will be packing up the store for all of the month of July, at least. (You’re welcome to help.)
Meantime, we are open today. Drop by and sip some champagne.
Thank you to all of the ingenious individuals who have worked at Chartwell Booksellers — from Suzanne Vuillet (our first hire) to the superb Gitta Jocson, who, blessedly, will be escorting us to our still unmentionable new location.
Most dearly, thank you to the late-Michael Coyle and to the retired-but-not-forgotten Ismael Medina, who meant so much to Chartwell Booksellers and really made us what we are.
Thank you to all of the authors who debuted books here — from our earliest FIRST READINGS: A Fanfare for New Fiction authors: Bobbie Ann Mason, Scott Spencer, Tama Janowitz, Ellen Gilchrist, Jayne Anne Phillips, Alice McDermott, Mark Helprin, Daniel Berrigan, Jeanette Winterson, Thulani Davis; to our distinguished guest readers for that series: Elizabeth McGovern, Judd Nelson, Caitlin Clarke, Tom Cayler, Brooke Adams, David Alan Grier, Kate Nelligan, Judith Ivey, Elizabeth Berridge, Martin Sheen, Edward Herrmann, Frank Whaley, Alec Baldwin, Daniel Gerroll, Donald Moffat, Gregory Hines, George C. Wolfe, Tonya Pinkins and Keith David.
To all of our many, many Churchill authors, too numerous to itemize, who shared their often weighty tomes, thank you, but especially, to the store’s dearest friend and collaborator, the late-Sir Martin Gilbert.
Thank you to the forty authors and actors who read for our 40TH READINGS SERIES online.
Thanks to all of the photographers we exhibited here — from Eugene Atget, Brassai, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Clarence Sinclair, Bull, Edward Hurrell, W. Eugene Smith, Frederic Ohringer, Lou Stoumen, Giselle Freund, W. Eugene Smith, Harvey Stein, Galen Rowell, Peggy Jarrell Kaplan, Marilyn Miller and Ross Lewis, to Eudora Welty, Ellen Kaplowitz. Danielle Weil, Harold Roth, William Gottlieb, Alex MacLean, Stephanie Berger, Hugh Bell, Arthur Bacon, Charles Conlon, Carl Horner, Paul Thompson and Louis Van Oeyen, Francis Wolff, Fabian Bachrach, Bob Parent, Chuck Stewart, David Redfern, Bruce Cratsley, Ben Ross, Joyce Tenneson and Fawn Potash.
Thank you to the extraordinary building staff at Park Avenue Plaza, who made every event run so smoothly and professionally, and rendered every hour spent in our arcade so cordial and familial.
To Vince Giordano and all of the musicians who performed at our Tea Dances; thank you.
Most essentially to Winston Churchill and to the Churchill family, the grandest thank you of all.
Onwards, now, to victory, and to our new address.