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Curator's Tour: The Greenwich Village Bookshop Door: A Portal to Bohemia, 1920–1925

Presented by Harry Ransom Center at Harry Ransom Center

October 6, 2011

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Molly Schwartzburg, Cline Curator of Literature, leads a tour of the exhibition The Greenwich Village Bookshop Door: A Portal to Bohemia, 1920–1925 on Thursday, October 6, at 7 p.m. at the Harry Ransom Center.

As early as 1921, noteworthy visitors to Frank Shay's bookshop, located at 4 Christopher Street in the heart of Greenwich Village in New York City, began signing the narrow door that opened onto the store's back room. When the shop closed in 1925, manager Juliette Koenig preserved the door and, with it, a revelatory slice of cultural history. Signed by 240 writers, artists, actors, publishers, and other community members, this unusual artifact presents a unique opportunity to reconsider the intersecting communities that made the Village an epicenter of American modernism and literary commerce.

The exhibition unravels the dense web of professional, intellectual, and personal connections that may be found between many of the seemingly unrelated names on the door and shows how a single artifact can set off a chain reaction, revealing connections and influences that are otherwise forgotten.

The gallery exhibition is complemented by a web exhibition of the same name. Learn more at www.hrc.utexas.edu/bookshopdoor.

If you are unable to attend the curator's tour, free docent-led tours of the exhibitions are offered Tuesdays at noon and on Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. The exhibition runs through January 22.