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Thieves of Book Row

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Title

Thieves of Book Row

Description

Thieves of Book Row (1926-1930)
In the first decades of the twentieth century, Manhattan’s famous Book Row consisted of six city blocks filled to the brim with second-hand bookstores. A variety of interesting personalities ran these stores; some of the booksellers were honest men, but others were not. Dishonest booksellers obtained their wares by stealing from the most plentiful source of books available: public libraries. They would then “sophisticate” the stolen books by replacing missing or incomplete sections so they could be sold for greater profit. Of great notoriety was the Book Row theft ring which consisted of three powerful Book Row proprietors, Charles Romm, Ben Harris, and Henry Gold, as well as the “book scouts” they recruited to do their dirty work. Over the course of five years, the theft ring was successful in stealing an estimated five million dollars of rare books from libraries across the Northeast. A detective working the New York Public Library brought the book theft crime ring down. As a result, libraries began to implement security measures, but not enough to prevent all future book theft.

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Biographical Text

In the first decades of the twentieth century, Manhattan’s famous Book Row consisted of six city blocks filled to the brim with second-hand bookstores. A variety of interesting personalities ran these stores; some of the booksellers were honest men, but others were not. Dishonest booksellers obtained their wares by stealing from the most plentiful source of books available: public libraries. They would then “sophisticate” the stolen books by replacing missing or incomplete sections so they could be sold for greater profit. Of great notoriety was the Book Row theft ring which consisted of three powerful Book Row proprietors, Charles Romm, Ben Harris, and Henry Gold, as well as the “book scouts” they recruited to do their dirty work. Over the course of five years, the theft ring was successful in stealing an estimated five million dollars of rare books from libraries across the Northeast. A detective working the New York Public Library brought the book theft crime ring down. As a result, libraries began to implement security measures, but not enough to prevent all future book theft.

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Citation

“Thieves of Book Row,” Creighton University Libraries: Archives & Special Collections, accessed October 16, 2024, https://creightonarchives.omeka.net/items/show/202.

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