The Marvelous McNally Jackson
Everyone should have a place they feel at home outside their existing home. For me, that location is McNally Jackson Books, an independent bookstore chain with four stores scattered across New York City. Every time I walk inside one of its stores, McNally Jackson's walnut oak arms embrace me into a hug of comfort before setting me free to enjoy the books of its rumbling belly.
Last December, my mom brought me to McNally Jackson's flagship location in SoHo for the first time. Since its doors opened in 2004, McNally Jackson has kept up with the hustle and bustle of the lush gardens, chic boutiques, and steaming cafés on the corner of Prince Street and Mulberry. So when my mom and I walked inside the bookstore on that chilly afternoon, we were instantly warmed by the scene of curious beings leafing through novels, booksellers helping every indecisive being, and wondrous folk who did not know what to buy.
With the store's reads categorized by region, it was as if I had the world by my fingertips. One second I was immersed in the Nigerian literature section with the colorful titles of Black Sunday by Tola Rotimi and Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie calling my name. Then by taking one step to the left Asian and Southeast Asian tales like Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata and The Illicit Happiness of Other People by Manu Joseph tangled me into their stories.
As a New Yorker first and American second, I especially loved the subway-style display of the New York novels section. Reads like My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh and Goodbye To All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York, edited by Sari Botton, lined the shelves and re-emphasized that writing examines every pizza crumb of New York City whether you realize it or not.
However, just two years prior, founder, Sarah McNally, would not have envisioned my mom and me — or anyone for that matter, still browsing around in that pioneer McNally Jackson. During an interview with New York Magazine in October of 2018, McNally explained that her landlord was proposing a ridiculous rent increase from $360,000 to $850,000. So, McNally was looking for a new location that autumn, making sure to stay in the same vibrant Nolita area. She did not sound too attached to the building anyhow, describing its "shoddy" construction and mentioning in a statement to the real estate agency that the store was literally "thrown up over a former chicken abattoir."
However indifferent she tried to seem, readers hear a real breakthrough in McNally at one point in the piece. She describes how she found the original SoHo location at 29, eager to open her own bookstore and fly off the wings of her Canadian bookseller parents. "I went down to the Department of Land Use," she expressed, "and I got a map — huge, black-and-white, printed on shitty paper, with every building in the city. I colored in all the movie theaters, the cultural centers. I colored in pedestrian flow. This became the obvious area." Her fingers rapped the table. "All the brokers were like, 'You can't open on that side of Broadway. You're wrong.' But I knew I wasn't, because I'd drawn this thing out. And I wasn't."
It turns out McNally was not all too ready to leave that spot in 2018, either. Four months later, interviewer, Nick Tabor, caught up with her again, where she revealed that since her landlord met her in the middle with rent, McNally Jackson was staying put on Prince Street. "Sometimes you don't know what you have until it's gone," she expressed.
In between those four months, McNally Jackson opened its first location in Brooklyn. The store is now known for its "knowledgeable but unpretentious vibe" at the heart of Williamsburg. In addition, the company announced that two more branches would open as soon as the end of the year. One shop would launch in Downtown's Brooklyn City Point area and the other in South Street Seaport, a location in the works for years.
"It's almost starting to feel like one of New York's favorite independent bookstores is turning into a local chain," Tabor told McNally.
"No! Don't say it!" she exclaimed.
Indeed, the last thing anyone needs is another independent business going mainstream, especially an independent bookstore. In 2009, independent bookshops were on the verge of collapse, big-box chain retailers like Barnes & Nobles and the one and only online giant, Amazon, beating them on the totem pole. However, we are in a new era for such companies. According to the American Bookseller Association (ABA), between 2009 and 2018, there was a 49% growth of "indie" booksellers.
So what contributed to the independent bookstore resurgence? McNally Jackson is a part of this new generation of bookstores, their continuous growth a direct slap in the face to retailers far and wide.
For the past eight years, like immersing yourself in a 400-page novel, Harvard professor Ryan Raffaelli submerged into the world of independent bookstores to illustrate how necessary these stores are. In 2018 he released a working paper, titled "Reinventing Retail: The Novel Resurgence of Independent Bookstores," painting findings from his extensive research on the unique core of indie bookshops that makes people return to them again and again.
Raffaelli's study identifies the "3C's" responsible for the independent bookstore resurgence: Community, Curation, and Convening — and McNally Jackson truly embraces them all.
COMMUNITY. "Independent bookstore owners promoted the idea of consumers supporting their local communities by shopping at neighborhood businesses. ... and won customers back from Amazon and other big-box players by stressing a strong connection to local community values," he begins.
McNally Jackson has certainly inserted itself as a New York City staple. The New York novel section that first caught my eye when I went to the flagship location is a direct testament to the company's determination to make its readers feel seen. In addition, since the shops' books are divided by the region their author hails from, as the melting pot of the city they are in, McNally Jackson reflects and enriches the kaleidoscope of cultures that walks through their doors.
Now, my favorite McNally Jackson is the one in Williamsburg. In the heat of August, where summer stretched out as slowly as taffy, my grandma, Mimi, and I, decided to have a day trip to the neighborhood. I felt like a hot-shot, the mysterious girl in the book store, as I scooped up The Mothers by Brit Bennet, Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, and The Idiot by Elif Batuman. It was beautiful to stop by with Mimi, a girl who at my age also devoured novels at the speed of lightning, amidst a day of eating Levain double chocolate chip cookies, poking into obscure boutiques with Orca mugs, and breathing the bright air of Berry Street.
In Sarah McNally's "How I Get It Done" interview with The Cut, she promptly states, "Every element of my stores is something that I want to be part of New York City and part of the world. There are almost no compromises. I get to take 5- or 6,000 square feet of the city and make it great — it's really exciting. That's a good job."
CURATION. For the second 'C,' Raffeli notes, "Independent booksellers began to focus on curating inventory that allowed them to provide a more personal and specialized customer experience. Rather than recommending only bestsellers, they developed personal relationships with customers by helping them discover up-and-coming authors and unexpected titles."
Bestsellers are genuinely only a slice of McNally Jackson's decadent pie. No novel hogs the shelves simply because critics are raving about it on every blog known to man. There is a person for every book and a book for every person.
According to the New York Business Journal, as of 2016, the store carried "55,000 volumes and its literary selection alone numbered 8,300 books." McNally Jackson also acts as a self-publisher, pushing out 700 books a month. In addition, its Espresso Book Machine, a double threat as a bookbinder and printer, creates self-published and public domain novels. Yet while their inventory is profound, in an age where customers face challenges trying to decide what to buy from Amazon, "the everything store," as Raffeli calls it, this is where McNally Jackson's booksellers come in.
While you are browsing around, McNally Jackson is like Disney World for bookworms. If you are ever stuck on what to read, there is always someone to help fulfill your greatest desires. In addition, every month, staff come together to recommend their favorite reads for the "Staff Pick" section. Raffeli explains that this use of "shelf-talkers" — small note cards that hang over the shelves with words from bookstore employees on why they enjoyed a book, "reinforce the unique personal connection between the consumer and bookseller (who are often voracious readers themselves)." It certainly is fun learning what Maddie, Nick, or Kyle read while sipping coffee on a lonely park bench. As someone who hopes to work at McNally Jackson one day, it gives me the courage to read far and wide because you never know who might find joy in what you enjoy as well.
CONVENING. And on our last 'C' that makes independent bookstore succeed, Raffeli explains, "Independent booksellers started to promote their stores as intellectual centers for convening customers with like minded interests—offering lectures, book signings, game nights, children's storytimes, young adult reading groups, even birthday parties."
McNally Jackson's events are always bursting with popularity. Whether on Zoom or in-person, authors routinely stop in for book-signings and seminars, local restaurants pair up with the store to serve treats, and there is no shortage of quirky pop-up events. Over the summer, McNally Jackson started a bi-weekly poetry series with Elizabeth Street Garden, and it indeed blossomed in such a short amount of time.
My friend Rebekah and I went to the poetry event on August 29th, when the theme of the week was "Light." This was our first time seeing one another after a long summer spent apart, and as the petals of the season drifted away, there was no better time to rejoice in friendship and community anew.
Elizabeth Street Garden is breathtaking, with New York's flora and fauna transporting every spot of the land from when it was an abandoned lot in the 1990s. As the official website states, it is practically the only public green space in Little Italy & Soho, with its "whimsical statues and lush greenery," allowing residents to break free from their standard concrete shackles.
It was beautiful attending a poetry reading in person, the fifty people in the crowd all as thirsty for human interaction and performance as I was after a year behind the screen. As someone who wants to improve on her poetry skills, it was heartening to see people I would typically pass by on the street without blinking an eye ultimately come alive with their words on a Sunday afternoon. It is a breathtaking realization that the performers and I have all roamed McNally Jackson’s shelves — whether in SoHo, Williamsburg, Downtown Brooklyn, or South Street Seaport and found inspiration to craft our own stories.
After the hour was over, Rebekah confessed that one poem made her cry. "Oh friend," I said, "so did I."
As one poet of the hour said, "You may want to take a picture of the sunrise, but the light is within you."
Sadly I cannot remember exactly which artist read this meaningful phrase (you can find a list of all the performers here,) but they are right. The light is within all of us. McNally Jackson and their horizon of novels (that all come with the most adorable bookmark,) booksellers that resemble rays of sunshine, and a loyal community of shoppers that are the hidden stars in the morning sky, truly spark New York City alive.
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