Penn bookstore transitions through a century

Students craving cigars in the 1920s didn’t have to trek to a cigar shop downtown — instead they headed to the basement of Houston Hall.

This basement was the inaugural location of the Penn Bookstore, before it went on to becoming the first academic superstore in the country. The store, flanked by hanging Penn banners, contained display tables in the middle of the floor selling cigars and other items, while the books lined the walls.

The bookstore and apothecary opened in 1906, “an indication that Penn had grown to the size that it needed and could support a bookstore,” said Mark Lloyd, director of the University Archives and Records Center. “It was a function of Penn’s rapid growth at the turn of the 20th century.”

In 1968, after the bookstore moved to the space now occupied by Huntsman Hall, the Houston Hall basement became a “Shops at Penn” area. Lloyd, a graduate student in history in the 1970s, remembered that there was a record store, barbershop, post office and “lots of little shops like that.”

Meanwhile, the bookstore remained on Locust Walk in a temporary space until 1998. “It was not architecturally something [about which] you’d say, ‘that’s what Penn meant,’” Business Services spokeswoman Barbara Lea-Kruger said.

Christopher Bradie, associate vice president of Business Services, explained that unlike the current bookstore, where the design elements are conscious, the 38th Street and Locust Walk location was “temporary and not conscious.”

The store sold course books and other trade books, but it was “just smaller,” vice president of Business Services Marie Witt said. The magazines were sold at the checkout counter and the store had only one floor.

She added that there were no spaces to study and the coffee shop, called My Favorite Muffin, was “grab ‘n go.”

But the bookstore was growing. The Locust Walk space, which began as one of a series of storefronts, “kept expanding … until it occupied three or four storefronts,” Lloyd said.

Finally, in 1998, the store moved to the corner of 36th and Walnut streets, after entering into an agreement with Barnes and Noble in 1996. Bradie, who oversees Penn’s present relationship with Barnes and Noble, enumerated three goals of the new store: primarily selling course materials, promoting the brand of the University through its products and becoming a place of community.

“It’s a one-stop shop for all three,” Bradie added. “It’s very different than the mission of some other bookstores.”

He explained that Penn plays an “active role” in its relationship with Barnes and Noble. “They help us see trends in the larger marketplace, and we make the translation for Penn,” he said.

The new store — which is about 65-percent larger than the old one and sells 130,000 titles — has “exceeded expectations,” Bradie added. For example, “we wouldn’t have anticipated the frequency of author events,” he said.

Witt said that the new store has a greater supply of merchandise and now has the ability to feature Penn Press books, as well as Penn authors. “People are uniformly happy with the new store,” she added.

The Barnes and Noble Café, which has “gone through different branding” until it became a Starbucks in 2007, is a “place for students to spend time and meet friends,” Witt said.

She explained that the “café feel” is very conscious — the store’s wireless internet and big chairs contribute to the feeling that the store “is not just a place to make a transaction.”

Environmental sustainability is also furthered at the bookstore — connecting the store to “Penn-specific” initiatives, Bradie said. For example, this year’s graduation gowns are made with recycled materials — each gown is made of 23 plastic bottles.

After all these transitions, people are not left waxing nostalgic about the old bookstore.

“The new bookstore is better in every regard,” Lloyd said. “It was a huge step toward a first-class university.”

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