In my files I found this letter from a friend in Sea Cliff who I met frequently at Thompson's Bookstore. Thompson died in the late 70s or earlyl 80s. This letter is about the new and less colorful management and also has interesting notes about a community of NY City people who lived in houses on stilts above the waters of Jamaica Bay.

Jan. 3, 1982

Dear Wally,

Here are a couple of clippings from today's TINES. House prices seem to be dropping a little on Long Island--but_,not by much.

The Broad Channel story is interesting. I've known people who lived out there. It was a pleasant little community. At the northern end there used to be a group of houses on stilts, over the water, linked by board walks. They had running water piped out along the walks, but they flushed their sewage right into the bay. They had their own subway stop. It was quite a picturesque way to live, though they pretty much closed it up in the winter because the water pipe would freeze. Community was known as "The Raunt." These houses have been torn down and the mudflats are part of a wildlife refuge.

There's a spur of the subway that runs on trestles across Jamaica Bay, and there's a Broad Channel stop. The trains don't always make it in really bad weather. The bay is shallow and picks up quite a chop in a high wind.

There are other communities like this here and there around Jamaica Bay but none of the others are on islands. I assure you not many of the residents

are partners in Wall Street financial firms, though they're good, self-reliant, people. (They have to be).

Thompson's Bookstore is now John Cashman's Bookstore. Cashman is a former newspaper reporter, once with the NY Post, and more recently with Newsday. Tall man with a beard, but not the type of person who appears to enjoy serving the public. (Well, that was probably true of Mr. Thompson,too.)

I can see where he's making some mistakes, like having a lot of old hard-bound novels, spine upmost, in large, open tables. He doesn't have many paperbacks. I assume that once people know he's there, they'll start bringing in paper­backs. Back in 1973 John Shuttleworth, who was publishing MOTHER EARTH NEWS, up in Ohio, started a companion magazine, called LIFESTYLE, which lasted only about a year and a half, mostly because the POst Office refused to grant it a second-class mail permit (you think the PO doesn't censor things? think again) but it had some excellent how-to-do-it articles. One of which was a good two-part article on the second-hand book business. I'll Xerox it and drop it off. It's possible he knows the article, though he doesn't seem to be following many of its suggestions.