LEFT INSIDE: Another Bookshop Receipt

This bookshop receipt was Left Inside a copy of The Wallet of Kai Lung that I purchased many moons ago from John Chandler's long-lived but sadly now defunct bookstore Bookman's Corner on Broadway and Wellington in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago.  I've mentioned this mess of a bookstore that I dearly loved visiting a couple of times on this blog. I bought both books listed on this receipt as they were shelved one right next to each other in John's store.  Amazing that the receipt dated Dec 19, 1955 stayed inside that book for over 50 years. And that both books and the ancient receipt traveled from Seattle to San Francisco, then to a warehouse in Chicago, and finally transferred from John's warehouse to his book crammed store sometime in 2007 where a few weeks later I bought both of those books by Ernest Bramah. Click on the photo to enlarge. Those who can read cursive will be able to read the book titles Wallet of Kai Ling and Kai Lung's Golden Hours as well as the customer and his address on December 1955. He paid a total of $5.20 for two used reprint editions that were published in 1929 and 1932. The book I found the receipt inside in shown below. 

The customer's name is Tony Marks who lived in the Geary-Taylor apartments in San Francisco in 1955. I did a search on that building and real estate sites list the address as on Geary Street, but Google Maps has the actual address as 501 Taylor St and shows the awning with a painted 501 as the entrance on that street.  The Geary side has no entrance that I could discern. The entire building, built in 1920, is listed for sale at Zillow for a cool $15 million. Looks like it's completely vacant and intense rehabbing was going on at one time. Have no idea if it ever was completed.

But the bookstore is much more interesting.  Shorey's Book Store was at one time "The Northwest's Largest" and I have feeling it was one of the oldest when it ended business in 2000. Established in 1890 it came into life first as a magazine and cigar store. Original address was 701 Third Ave near Cherry Street.  According to a brief history the store moved several times in its 110 year existence. The address on the receipt states 815 Third Ave which is now the Flamingo Terrace Apartments. The bookstore's final location in 1995 was Fremont.  It closed five years later.

There are several photographs of the store that pop up all over the internet, the earliest taken circa 1895 can be found at the MOHAI photo archive site.  I found one rather good one (at left) on the Seattle Public Library Digital Collections.  Not only are there many photographs at various stages in the store's life, but there are several newspaper articles and Facebook posts devoted to the store.  It was clearly a beloved store and one article details how a customer's want list item submitted in 1971 was fulfilled in 1990. That's dedication! Such devotion to customers simply does not exist in our world anymore.