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Throughout the 1980s, Giovanni’s Room had trouble with bricks. As the gay rights movement swelled and AIDS steadily ravaged the community, every now and then a single brick would come crashing through the bookstore’s front window. There were about 17 to 20 bricks in total, and owner Ed Hermance has no idea who threw them. But this stream of vandalism didn’t get him down — he took the bricks home and used them to build a walkway in front of his house. “The reason I took them home is because they were good bricks,” he told a reporter in 1993. “What was I going to do, drop them in the trash?”
Now, nearly 40 years after the store opened at its original location on South Street, the country’s oldest gay bookstore is having brick troubles of a different kind. In July, it was brought to Ed’s attention that the building’s front wall was in danger of collapsing, and for a tiny niche bookstore in the age of Amazon.com and book superstores, the price tag posed a significant hurdle. “The store is not in the position to borrow that money and then pay it back over time,” says Ed. “It just doesn’t make that kind of money.” But the wall would have to be fixed, and Ed was glad to learn of the problem early. He managed to pay the repair fees and pledged to raise $50,000 in the next year to break even.
Since that day in July, the store has scrapped together $36,000. The Philadelphia gay community has rallied behind the struggling shop and opened its pocketbooks to keep it afloat. From one day at OutFest in October that raised thousands of dollars to tiny bake sales across the city that continue to raise a few hundred each, the store is on track to hit its threshold. The funny thing is, Ed and his co-workers don’t seem that upset about the damages. “If someone had plunked down the $50,000 check it wouldn’t have been nearly as good for the store as what has happened,” he says. The store’s crusade has made headlines in Philadelphia and across the country, and more people than ever before are curious about what’s inside Giovanni’s Room.
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Thanks for this article, which captured details about Ed I didn't know, even after knowing him since the late 70's and volunteering at Giovanni's off and on for many years. The opening few paragraphs of the story, though, might lead one to think that the main attraction of the store is the opportunity to look at naked men and racks of porn without embarrassment. That's certainly true--the only shame or guilt or opprobrium at Giovanni's is what folks come in with, and there's no better place in the world, I think, to shuck all that garbage. Just as important, though, is the balance of the inventory at the store, which is enormous--some 25,000 books, many of which can't easily be got anywhere else, and certainly can't be laid hands on--one of the nice things about independent bookstores for me, that opportunity to pick a book up, thumb through it, read a few lines, see how it feels. You can browse for hours, in that old-fashioned way, at Giovanni's, and the only attitude you'll get is the huge smile of Ed or one of his staff and the genuine offer, "Let me know if I can help you find anything." Finally, the non-English selections may be skinny, but they are enormous compared to any other real bookstore I know. You won't find many of these books at 36th and Walnut! So stop by 12th and Pine. Giovanni's Room is not only a Philly resource, it's a national treasure!
The Rev. Jim Littrell,
Rector, St. Mary's Church and Episcopal Chaplain to Penn
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