Dial and Pilsen: A Tale of Two Bookshops

When Mary Gibbons and Aaron Lippelt opened the Dial Bookshop last month in Chicago, Ill., it marked the second independent bookstore they've opened in less than two years. The pair met while working for a literacy nonprofit in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, which sold books to raise money for its programs. Lippelt and Gibbons eventually opened a pop-up bookshop of their own, and the informal store proved popular with residents. Before long they decided to make the jump and give their store a permanent home.

"We would just say, if we had a real bookstore, we'd do this, we'd do that," she recalled. "We talked about all the empty storefronts on 18th street, and said, why not do that? Why can't it be us?"

Gibbons and Lippelt opened Pilsen Community Books in a storefront on Pilsen's 18th Street in February 2016. They hired experienced bookseller Manuel Morales y Méndez, formerly of Howard's Books in nearby Evanston and several other indies in the Chicago area, to run the store on a day-to-day basis. The 1,500-square-foot shop carries mostly used books and a selection of merchandise, including tote bags and T-shirts. A major focus of Pilsen Community Books is Pilsen Reads!, a literacy program that donates books to local schools. So far, the store has given more than 1,700 books to students in 28 classrooms in the Pilsen area. Any Chicago teacher can apply online to receive books, though teachers at Pilsen schools are favored. The store also runs literary programming for customers in store and students in schools.

It was actually Morales y Méndez who led Lippelt and Gibbons to opening a second bookstore so soon. Morales y Méndez, who has been a bookseller for 20-plus years, knew the owner of Selected Works Used Books & Sheet Music, an art- and music-focused bookstore in the landmark Fine Arts Building on South Michigan Ave. The owner was retiring, and Morales y Méndez quickly reached out to Gibbons and Lippelt, encouraging them to open a bookstore in the space formerly occupied by Selected Works.

"We didn't know if we could afford Michigan Ave.," Gibbons said. "We didn't know if the building wanted us." To their surprise, they found that the owner of the Fine Arts Building was something of a patron of the arts. He keeps rents deliberately low so that artists can afford studios in the building, and he loves the building's artistic and literary history--the transcendentalist literary magazine The Dial, edited by Margaret Fuller, was founded in the building in 1840. The owner was excited about the prospect of another bookstore moving in to fill the gap left by Selected Works, and Lippelt and Gibbons decided to make the jump. "We were not planning on expanding that fast," remarked Gibbons. "But we didn't think we'd have another opportunity like this."

As they did with Pilsen Community Books, Gibbons and Lippelt have hired an experienced bookseller to manage things day-to-day at the Dial Bookshop: Kelsey Westenberg, who previously worked at RoscoeBooks in Chicago. Like Pilsen Community Books, Dial Bookshop sells predominantly used books.

Though the store has been open only a short time, Lippelt and Gibbons have noticed differences in what sells. At the Pilsen store, there is a strong focus on poetry and sociology, while at Dial Bookshop there are a lot of books pertaining to fine arts and architecture. New books, Gibbons noted, also sell noticeably better at the Dial store, which may lead them to expand that part of the inventory. "We're still figuring things out," said Gibbons. "We really tailor what our store does to the expertise of our staff and then to our customers."

Gibbons, Lippelt and Westenberg hosted the Dial Bookshop's grand opening on a frigid Friday night. While they were initially unsure of what the turn-out would be, they were thrilled to find the store completely packed. "It was very, very heartwarming to see so many people come out for a bookstore opening," Gibbons said. Guests included customers and friends from their first store, residents in the Fine Arts Building, other Chicago booksellers and more. "It's so good to see that bookstores are still such a draw for people." --Alex Mutter

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