ARGOSY BOOK STORE'S 100TH YEAR

Louis Cohen had a sly way of getting his daughters to work at his shop, the Argosy Book Store, when each graduated from college beginning in the 1950s.

"He was very clever and purposely let it be our idea," recalled his eldest daughter, Judith Lowry. "When people asked over the years how he got all three of his daughters to work for him, he'd say, ‘I guess I'm just lucky.'"

Mr. Cohen, who opened the Argosy in 1925 on a section of Fourth Avenue known as Book Row, was also clever enough in the 1950s to ensure the shop's longevity by buying the six-story building on East 59th Street that the business moved to in the 1930s and occupies today.

His daughters — Ms. Lowry, 90, Naomi Hample, 88, Adina Cohen, 84 — still run the Argosy, New York City's oldest independent bookstore, which is marking its 100th anniversary this year.

Among them, the sisters have two centuries of service at the Argosy, an anomalous haven of Old World elegance. They have withstood the superstores, rising rents and online retailers that forced many of their competitors to close. But as property values climb in a neighborhood where mom-and-pop shops have all but disappeared, some devoted customers worry how long the Argosy can survive.

The sisters say they are committed to keeping the store going. They reject what they say are almost daily offers to buy the building, which is surrounded by skyscrapers in one of the city's priciest areas and, according to real estate experts, worth well over $10 million.

"It would mean going out of business, and we like being here," Ms. Lowry once told an interviewer. "So in essence, we're paying for the privilege of working here."

The sisters took over the business after their father died in 1991. By then, they had spent decades working for him and their mother, Ruth Shevin, who ran the prints and maps gallery on the second floor.

"It's fun to be somewhere where every subject in the world can come up, and any type of person in the world might walk in," Ms. Cohen said.

Stepping into the quiet first floor, there is a general offering of antiquarian books, prints, and rare, out-of-print and first editions. A nearly hidden back stairway takes you to a basement filled with reasonably priced volumes, a step up from the $3 bargains out front. A small elevator operated by a staff member takes you up to the more esoteric collections.

The Argosy computerized its card catalog in the mid 1980s and has shifted smoothly into the digital age, with roughly a third of sales now occurring online, according to Mr. Lowry. Otherwise, little has changed.

"We're sort of in our own little treehouse," he said, adding that people often peer in the shop window, mystified. "They think we're a museum or something, not a place they can actually just walk into and look around."

Famous customers have included Princess Grace, Kirk Douglas and Mick Jagger. The sisters know to leave Woody Allen alone and that President Bill Clinton, who knows all three sisters by name, loves to chat and enjoys getting advice on what to buy.

To read the complete article, see:
One Bookstore, 3 Sisters and 100 Years (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/nyregion/three-sisters-argosy-books.html)

To visit the Argosy Book Store website, see:
https://www.argosybooks.com/

To browse their numismatic section, see:
https://www.argosybooks.com/searchResults.php?recordsLength=100&action=browse&category_id=411&orderBy=author

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web