Lin-Manuel Miranda & Others Join Together To Purchase Beloved Drama Book Shop

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In the fall, it was reported that Drama Book Shop, the long-running Midtown Manhattan book store beloved by theatergoers for its extensive collection of plays and books on theater, was going to have to leave its space due to rent hikes. But for the second time, longtime patron Lin-Manuel Miranda has come to its aid: Miranda, along with some of his Hamilton collaborators, and the City have joined forces to purchase the shop and save it from shuttering.

The store, which has been located at 250 West 40th Street for the last twenty years (and has been in business for over 100 years), will close its doors on January 20th. It is expected to reopen in the fall of 2019 at a new location in the theater district. Last October, the bookstore's vice president Allen Hubby said that the landlord of the building had initially proposed a 50% rent increase for the bookshop to renew its lease. (It was apparently between $18,000 to $30,000.)

After the story broke, Miranda, Hamilton director Thomas Kail, producer Jeffrey Seller, and theater owner James L. Nederlander, mobilized to rescue the store. With support from Media and Entertainment Commissioner Julie Menin, the group toured spaces in the theater district that could possibly house the book shop for the next 100 years and settled on an as-yet unannounced location in midtown.

"It’s the chronic problem — the rents were just too high, and I’m 84 years old — I just didn’t have the drive to find a new space and make another move," 84-year-old Rozanne Seelen, who has owned the store for many decades, told the Times. She had been dipping into her personal savings to keep the store afloat and continue paying its twenty or so employees, most of whom are students or performers who work part time. "Lin-Manuel and Tommy are my white knights."

"My first experiences directing in New York City were at the Arthur Seelen Theater in the basement of the Drama Book Shop," said Kail. "Thanks to the generosity of owners Allen Hubby and Rozanne Seelen, I had a small theater company that was in residence there for five years. I was lucky enough to be there the day the shop opened on 40th Street on December 3, 2001, and I am delighted to be part of this group that will ensure the Drama Book Shop lives on."

Menin added, "The Drama Book Shop is beloved by New York City’s theater community, and we simply could not stand by and watch a uniquely New York independent bookstore disappear. We are delighted to be playing a part in assuring this vital cultural resource can remain in midtown, for New Yorkers and tourists from all over the world to enjoy, and we know it will be in extremely capable hands."

This isn't the first time Miranda has stepped in to help the bookstore. The shop came into the news in 2016 after a pipe burst upstairs in the building, sending more than 20,000 gallons of water into the store and destroying about 20% of its merchandise. Miranda, who wrote most of his Tony Award-winning musical In The Heights there, launched the hashtag #BuyABook to support the store. Their sales apparently doubled during the period.