Steven Hann, the sidewalk bookseller who was a fixture near Columbia University in New York City, died of heart problems likely associated with the coronavirus, the New York Times reported. He was 67.
Hann began selling books and CDs in the early '80s in stores in Morningside Heights. Eventually he set up shop on Broadway between 112th and 113th Streets, where he continued to do business for decades. And even as his health declined in recent years, he commuted to his customary spot from his nursing home in the Bronx.
Bookseller Veronica Liu, founder of the nonprofit bookstore Word Up Community Bookshop/Librería Comunitaria in Washington Heights, was a longtime friend of Hann as well as an editor and publisher of his writing and poetry. She told the Times that his sidewalk shop helped connect people to books and stories to people, and it "kept up his spirit to be out there."