Alabaster Bookshop — Local services in New York

Four years ago I had an incident with Alabaster books that soured me on the store and its owners. I decided to let it go but four years later after going back to Alabaster and having another bad interaction I decided I should still write this review.

The incident began when I went to Alabaster during a weekend in New York. I entered the store and found an art book buried deep in one of the shelves. The book was listed for 120 dollars. I asked the guy working at the time if they’d accept 100 for it - if so then I’d buy it. He said he’d ask the owners and call me back if they accepted the offer. The next day I got a call saying the owners accepted and I made my way to Alabaster in the rain to buy the book.

As I was paying for the book (the cashier had my card in his hand), the phone rang. It was one of the owners who decided to change his mind, raising the price from the listed $120 (and agreed upon 100) to 800 dollars. I was shocked. Given I had gone out of my way to come back to the store and was about to pay it was absolutely disrespectful. I called the owner and told him I thought it was poor business conduct, and rather than apologizing he said the book was mispriced and was glad that he caught the mistake before I bought the book.

He didn’t offer an apology, or to give discount on another book, or offer store credit, he didn’t even offer a special discount on the book I had gone in to buy. I understand mistakes can happen, and I also understand the New York used book business is difficult, but given how flippantly the owner responded and how little interest there was in even apologizing I would say this was at best a complete disregard for the customers time and at worst a deliberate act of price gouging or bait and switch. There are tons of good used bookstores in NYC, hell, the Strand around the corner has better deals, better stock lists and friendlier employees.

I went back to Alabaster recently and upon asking for a price on another book I was told it had not been priced yet and to come back another day. Instead of just pricing it while I browsed they said if I want I can come back a day or two later and they’d have the price. Not sure if they just make a habit of asking customers to come back, or if they do it to deliberately mark up the prices, but it’s a bad practice. While there I took a look to see if the book I had previously bid on was there, and sure enough, four years on, the book still...

Alabaster Bookshop is a used and rare bookshop, just a couple of blocks away from Union Square Park. this independent bookstore is a breath of fresh air in an area that is clogged with retail chains and layers of redundant businesses. it’s awesome to see a store like this thrive and survive in NYC.

the store itself is very smalls. there are books everywhere from floor to ceiling but they are organized in a methodical way. there are deep discounted books to search through if you want to discover reading treasure in the book carts parked outside. the store has variety of major book genres organized by author name from general fiction and nonfiction to horror to sci fi and beyond. most of the books, themselves, are discounted bc they are used. it’s a win-win at Alabaster books bc you get to support a local business and get great fiction or nonfiction at all way lower prices.

i am really glad i stopped in this store bc the service was awesome. i was having trouble locating a book and the staffer/owner(?) was really helpful and picked through some books for me. he ended up finding one of the titles i was looking for…it’s the extra effort and thoughtfulness to help as opposed to just point to a section of the store to look in…that i appreciated. and hello’s and thank you’d go a long way. it really is the little things that make a retail transaction an experience as opposed to just a forgettable purchase.

highly recommend...

I've been to this bookstore before and had a positive experience and was able to find postcards and photos to use in collages. I was excited to return and became very disappointed when a staff member yelled at my partner and I for looking at books. I had spotted a poetry book in a stack on the floor and picked it up out of curiosity and interest. It had a letter written on the cover page from 2003 that I thought looked very sweet! As I continued to read the letter, the employee told my boyfriend and I that those books are "for skimming, not reading." His tone of voice was so harsh that my heart skipped a beat and I could feel my body shifting into fight or flight. We left. It was disappointing because I had been genuinely interested in the book and would have potentially purchased it had this employee not berated us for, frankly, very appropriate bookstore behavior. I would chalk it up to end of day crankiness had he not just had a kind interaction with another customer where he complimented the customer's shirt. I can't say for sure this comment was motivated by homophobia but it certainly felt like it. This would be a super cute spot and I would have loved to shop here again if this hadn't happened. I will bring my business elsewhere...