Literary DUMBO: An Afternoon Walk Under the Bridges in Search of Books
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My blogger friend Rob (see his terrific book-loving site, RobAroundBooks) clued me to the existence of Melville House, a publisher of quality books that is now housed on Plymouth Street at the intersection with Pearl in DUMBO, and I've been wanting to get over there for a long time. Rob, who is based in Scotland and knows about quality literature, had written about their line of novellas, one of my favorite literary genres, so I took advantage of the nice weather to visit the bookstore and to explore nearby attractions.
View Literary DUMBO in a larger map
After leaving the F train at the York stop, I headed down Jay Street to Plymouth Street, turned left and soon found Melville House and its books. I'm not accustomed to so much natural light in a bookstore, so it took a few minutes to adjust my eyes. Their books are indeed lovely objects to hold in the hand, and their novellas, most all by well-known authors and designed with clean vibrant colors, are nicely chosen. I decided on a Joseph Conrad tale, "Freya of the Seven Isles," partially because the proximity of the water had me yearning for a tale of the high seas.
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By all means, head to the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park to hang out, admire the bridges and look back at Manhattan. Everything about DUMBO suggests genres of photography - landscape, industrial, or
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The walk is only about one mile.
Images: Melville House (interior, top), powerHouse (exterior, middle), and the Manhattan Bridge (below), from April 16, 2009 by Walking Off the Big Apple. See many more images from the walk in a set at Flickr WOTBA.
Related Post (nearby):
A Walk in Willowtown to the Future Brooklyn Bridge Park
Comments
Melville House look like they have a marvelous store in Brooklyn, and you only helped to promote that more through your pic of a sun-soaked table display of Han's Fallada novels (mmmm). I wanna go! I wanna go! (especially with The powerHouse Arena and the P.S. Bookshop being so close too - you're so lucky!)
You actually promoted DUMBO really well as a whole - ice cream, pizzas, laying on the grass? Thank goodness you do so much walking :o)
Anyway thanks again Teri for showing those who aren't within walking distance of Melville House Bookstore (grrr!) exactly what it looks like.
Enjoy the books!
Rob
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