Jay Voss's blog

The Touch-Screen Is Not Just Enrichment

Frank Shay's Bookshop Door

Please note, the opinions expressed herein are solely those of viz. blog, and are not the product of the Harry Ransom Center.

“To clarify, the door likely didn’t come into the collection randomly,” explains Molly Schwartzburg, Curator of British and American Literature at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center. The door that she is talking about, of course, is Frank Shay’s bookshop door, which is currently featured in the Ransom Center’s interesting new exhibit, The Greenwich Village Bookshop Door: A Portal to Bohemia, 1920-1925. “We don’t have many details,” continues Schwartzburg, “but it appears that the owner of the door, who had been the shop’s last manager, decided that after thirty-five years of keeping the door in her home, she was ready to sell it.” The Ransom Center subsequently acquired the door through Lew David Feldman, a dealer who suspected that the Center might be interested because of their extensive Christopher Morley collection. Molly Schwartzburg graciously agreed to chat with viz. blog about Frank Shay’s bookshop door, and its accompanying exhibition.

Protesting What?

UT Co-Op

(Image Credit: Jay Voss)

“Here we go again, same old rat again…” Students and staff at UT Austin have undoubtedly noticed the protesters outside of the University Co-Op this semester. Every weekday, 15 to 20 determined workers gather on the sidewalk just south of Guadalupe and 23rd Street, and picket all morning until noon. The spot is especially smart given that all major southbound bus routes let out at the exact spot. Thousands of UT students and staff pass by these protestors every morning during the final stages of their commutes. The group’s chants echo eastward through one of the campus’ main pedestrian thoroughfares, all the way up to the revered UT-Austin bell tower. So I was surprised when a polling of my students revealed that none of them knew what the group stood for.

Harry Ransom Center Bookshop Door Exhibit is Open

Frank Shay Bookshop Door
Image Credit: Harry Ransom Center
Please note, the opinions expressed herein are solely those of viz. blog, and are not the product of the Harry Ransom Center.

For those of you that missed it, this week’s The New York Times Book Reviewhad a write-up on the Harry Ransom Center’s new exhibition, The Door: The Greenwich Village Bookshop Door. The exhibit, which opens this week, invites visitors to contemplate Frank Shay’s bookshop door, an entrance signed by 242 members of the Village’s 1920s literary scene. Some of the signatories, such as John Dos Passos and Sherwood Anderson, are giants of American literature, while others are lost to time. At the opening of this fascinating exhibition, it’s worth pausing for a moment and considering what this door had meant to passersby.

Recent comments