Shutting the Door on History

Reeve T. Schley
Mirror staff writer

   Somewhere inside the Santa Monica Trading Company on a recent Sunday, among a towering labyrinth of vintage magazines, books, and posters, sits Burt Blum slowly fingering through a three-foot pile of magazines from the 1940s. After a few minutes, he pulls a Life magazine with Winston Churchill on the cover, and places it on top for a waiting customer.
   The owner of the Main Street store for the last 25 years, Blum is both librarian and pop culture guru and can locate the most esoteric magazine in the teetering stacks within minutes.
   On the wall, a Raging Bull poster with Robert DeNiro’s face — swollen and bloody — overlooks a steady stream of people who have come for the store’s going-out-of-business sale. They look through prints from the 1800s and Vogue magazines from the 1930s.
   Unfortunately, its closure marks a disturbing trend. One month ago, after 56 years in business, Gallegos Mexican Deli shut its doors (and moved to West Los Angeles), and soon Stewart Camera will shut after 64 years in business, 35 of them under its current owners.
   While other stores have succumbed to skyrocketing rents and new development, Burt says the Trading Company is shutting for different reasons, including the events of September 11, the rise of Internet sales, and aching knees caused by over fifty years of carrying boxes of magazines up and down stairs.
   “After September 11, everything slowed down. Japanese tourists love this stuff. They know more about our culture than we do,” he said.
   The Internet has changed the used book market, making it easier to buy or sell a rare book or magazine from a computer terminal than small urban bookshop.
   “Things have changed. Customers used to come in and buy things. Now regardless of whether I have something or not, they will say ‘Oh, let me check the price on the Internet,’” he said.
   Instead of using a computer, Burt organizes celebrity magazines by their covers. There are stacks of Jack Nicholson, Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and political figures such as Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, and FDR – but the biggest sellers are Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Ben Hogan.
   Sections of store are devoted to architecture, fashion, rock and roll, politics and movies, with magazine prices ranging from $10 to $500. His rarest magazine is an Esquire with stories by both Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and the most valuable a 1930 Time with Hitler on the cover.
   With the news of its closure, the store is busy again as a parade of well-wishers come by to search its eclectic library one more time.
   “You can’t leave us,” says Hank Rosenfield from the front door. “This store is more like a museum than a shop.”
   “I’m here just because of nostalgia,” another customer says. “I love this stuff.”
   Now that it is closing, Burt hopes a movie studio will come by and buy his collection, which is often used as a reference tool. (For instance, a 1960 catalog from the defunct department store Montgomery Ward is useful for finding the right refrigerator for a movie shoot.) Fashion designers also thumb through his stacks of rare fashion magazines for ideas.
   Even if he is not able to sell his collection in bulk, Burt seems determined to shut down the store — a hard thing given his family’s long history in the business.
   In 1949, his father opened the Cherokee Book Shop in Hollywood, one of the first stores in the world to sell comic books and other collectibles, and he woefully recalls selling Superman #1 for $20, instead of its $120,000 asking price in today’s high-speed world.
   Outside on the street, tourist stream by, drinking fancy Starbuck’s lattes, gabbing on cell phones, and carrying plastic Gap bags. They move quickly, passing by a little nook of Santa Monica history, which will soon be gone.