The Bank Street Bookstore, 1970–2020: A Short History

The Bank Street Bookstore was, for half a century, a well-known Manhattan shop for children’s books and for the adults who choose them. This page gathers a few documented facts about it, because many websites, articles and school documents still link to the store’s old web address — the address this independent publication now uses.

Beginnings: a small shop at the College

The bookstore opened in 1970 in a small space in Bank Street College of Education’s building on West 112th Street. Sources differ on exactly where: the store’s own About page (as quoted by a West Side Rag reader in 2015 and preserved by the Internet Archive), the manager’s 2020 closing letter and a 2020 Publishers Weekly report all say the College lobby, while West Side Rag’s 2020 report says the basement. Over the following decades it became a well-known children’s bookstore; Time Out New York’s listing praised its knowledgeable staff for finding gems rather than steering customers to best-sellers.

Broadway at 112th Street, then 107th Street

Publishers Weekly reported in 2020 that the store expanded in 1990 into a larger, two-story space on Broadway; by the 2010s it was at the corner of Broadway and West 112th Street. In 2014, facing a steep rent increase there, the store arranged a lower-rent lease a few blocks south, and in February 2015 it opened at 2780 Broadway, at the corner of West 107th Street — a single-floor space of about 2,200 square feet, according to Publishers Weekly. The grand opening followed on Saturday, March 7, 2015: West Side Rag reported that thirty children’s book authors would take part, and Publishers Weekly described a ribbon-cutting with local officials and more than thirty author and illustrator signings. Our record of the grand opening lists the documented schedule.

Story hours and author events

Families on the Upper West Side knew the store for its free story hours. In 2019 Time Out New York Kids listed its free story times on Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings at 10:30 for children from about six months to six years old, the same schedule named in the title of the store’s own story-time page. The store also hosted a steady calendar of author readings and signings; our archive keeps records of a few that are still widely linked.

If you are looking for a story time today, your local public library is the best place to start — see our guide to using your public library, or our practical guide to story time with toddlers.

Closing (2020)

In July 2020, the store announced that it would close permanently at the end of August. West Side Rag (July 8) and Publishers Weekly (July 9) reported the announcement, noting that the store had been closed to customers since mid-March because of the COVID-19 pandemic and that the difficulty and cost of reopening with social-distancing measures could not be overcome. The closure ended fifty years in business.

What this website is — and is not

BankStreetBooks.com is a new, independent children’s literature publication. It is not the Bank Street Bookstore, is not run by its former staff, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Bank Street College of Education. We do not sell books, hold events or have access to the store’s past orders, gift cards or mailing lists. We have not republished the store’s pages or the College’s materials; this page summarizes public sources, which are listed below.

Read more about who we are.