Another New York institution bites the dust

Except for sickness in one’s family or the loss of a life, is there anything sadder than to see a bookstore shut its doors? I used to live on a street that had three bookstores within 50 yards of each other. All three are now boutiques selling expensive bric-à-brac, or whatever the junk that tarts wear is called. Browsing in a bookstore has to be every bibliophile’s wet dream, a perfect way to stand upright, in a correct posture, and lose weight while reading blurbs. Excelsior! It is every frustrated or unsuccessful writer’s dream to own and operate a bookstore, but nowadays it’s like selling sunlamps to Australians: there are no takers. And how could there be? No one under the age of 60 reads books, and those who do move their lips because they’re going gaga. Mind you, if a bookstore shut because it was being replaced by an old-style drugstore, with blonde girls serving BLTs behind the counter, it’d hurt much less. But a jewellery shop? Even a whorehouse would give more value for money, and believe me, I know.

Fifteen years ago, the chairman of Fiat cars Gianni Agnelli, my boxer friend Count Roffredo Gaetani and I went down past Wall Street to the port where Gianni’s brand-new Stealth was anchored waiting for a trial. The Stealth was made of carbon and some other lightweight material that enabled it to sail in light winds in excess of 20 knots. Even the sails were titanium. We blasted off and did about 30 knots running under Brooklyn Bridge and showing off up and down the Hudson River. After a couple of hours Gianni said he had had enough and expressed a desire to have a ‘real New York pastrami sandwich’. There’s only one place, I told him, Café Edison. ‘228 West 47th street,’ I instructed his driver.