It no longer exists. Was the best damn book store in the ENTIRE world. I put in Big Al’s phones when he moved in. Took them out for his son when the closed down about thirty years later. The new subway to Universal Studios did them in. Changed the entire neighborhood on Hollywood Blvd…Across the street is Hollywood toy. It’s where the mask makers gave me the tubes of fake bloody boogers I would stick in my mustache before going into gay bars on phone repair. Naturally, all the phone equipment is always installed in the ceiling of the bathroom, accessed by the folding drop ladder. Why not in the ladies side? Huh? Their is no ‘ladies’ side in these establishments…Anyhow, Book City ruled its side of Hollywood Blvd. Mainly because of Big Al’s odd ways. He would stand in front of his store and toss his coffee at the street punks hassling him while associates tried to steal books off his rolling cart next to the front doors…He once threw Roseanne Barr out of his store while screaming his legendary, “This is NOT the library, fatso!”…A real glimpse into a different dimension was to go into his basement. Many a strong man came up those stairs a changed man. OH YEAH. Scary my friends. Al’s store was not far from Vine, the oldest, craziest part of Hollywood. Even L.A. itself. Once you lifted the huge slightly horizontal steel door that covered the concrete stairs, you we’re in a different dimension. You we’re in the land of lost books. Hitting the light switch, its pathetic glow was only just better then a match. Why? Because it was the first of a ONE MILE, illegal string of lights, put together by lost souls, trying to clean up a sinking Titanic of books. The ceiling was only about six foot high. Books in stacks vertically actually went from the floor, to the ceiling, FOREVER. Yep. You see, Al owned the entire block over time. He then jack hammered apertures through the basements of each new acquisition, then, FILLED THEM WITH MORE BOOKS. Their was no way to climb out once you we’re in this maze. All the upper access stairs had been nailed shut. You don’t even think about ripping off Big Al. Why would I be down there? Because of the 150 year old cables that fed all the business’s ABOVE MY HEAD. Big Al had me as his BOY since I loved books. One day, while about five stores away from the stairwell, the entire end of town loses power. I’m in stygean black. Literally couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. In five seconds, I can hear the rats. Hundreds of them. No. Thousands maybe. They lived quite well on all the restaurants that occupied the stores above. You think water pipes that old don’t leak? I would find entire stacks of hard bound books, molding into a lump to step over from a pipe leaking onto them for TWENTY years. The smells could knock a vulture off a gut wagon in some of those passage ways. I pull out my flashlight. Dead batteries. I go to my back up, my pen light in my repair folder. It works…There’s no way I could tell all the stories I have of BOOK CITY in one sitting. NO WAY…Oh, the star in front of his entrance from the walk of fame?…JIMI HENDRIX…
