Like a labyrinth, the cavernous basement of Midtown Scholar Bookstore on 3rd Street has expanded with an excavated tunnel linking two buildings together and creating a seemingly endless series of rooms, each with wall-to-wall shelves of used books.
Proprietor Eric Papenfuse stands next to the tunnel, which connects the bookstore’s vast history collection with Robinson’s Rare Books and Fine Prints, a low-ceiling room with dark-wood furniture that has the feel of a medieval library.
“Used books are about the thrill of the hunt, the search, and the find,” he said, waving his arm at the seemingly endless rows of history books that include one long row dedicated to just European history.
Papenfuse opened the 10,000-square-foot book store at 1302 3rd St. nearly four years ago, but this year he took out part of a wall on the first floor to connect with 1300, on the corner of 3rd and Verbeke, and tunneled through 1302’s basement wall to link with 1300’s basement.
“We took out huge truck loads of dirt,” he said.
He is clearly proud of the tunnel and spent $100,000 renovating 1300 and connecting the two buildings, which adds 5,000 square feet of floor space, most of it lined with bookcases. The expansion has allowed for a large children’s section as well as a classroom for lectures, poetry readings and musical performances.
It has also allowed for two businesses to lease space in 1300 – P & R Bakery, conveniently located next to the children’s section, and Robinson’s Rare Books, which carries volumes more than 430 years old.
The expansion also has enhanced the main bookstore with its café, large stage, outdoor deck with a view of the Capitol dome, and rows upon rows of bookcases laden with nonfiction and fiction.
“The physical layout of the bookstore mirrors the sense of discovery we’re trying to convey to people,” Papenfuse said. “You never know what you’re going to find.”
The expansion also helps to accommodate a good portion of the 50,000 books Papenfuse purchased in August at the auctioning of about two-thirds of Texas author Larry McMurtry’s collection of 450,000 used and rare books.
The auction, called the Last Book Sale, was held in the prairie town of Archer City, Tx., where McMurtry’s four-building store, Booked Up, is located. It also was the setting of McMurtry’s novel, “The Last Picture Show.”
“Archer City is the story of trying to revitalize a town,” Papenfuse told the New York Times. “We’re looking to take Larry’s model and bring it to Pennsylvania.”
Papenfuse and his wife, Catherine, are moving about 30,000 books from the auction into their store, increasing the stock of titles to hunt and discover to about 200,000 books. He has another 800,000 or more books at his 6th Street warehouse.
Browsers can find almost any subject among the store’s hundreds of shelves, he said. “It is quality, well-chosen books that we hope people will like.”
