When I was around 10, I spent the summer at the beach 38th street house.
My grandfather often talked about his movie years being a motion picture operator in the early days of film. As new movie projector models replaced the old ones, he saved them in the basement. He would often take us down there and weave his stories and show us all the wonderful things he collected. Collecting I learned was a part of his personality. He told me that collecting is about passion.
It was one of the greatest summers of my life. In the early evening, that twilight time between day and night, in the part of the house that was my grandparents’ quarters off the right side of the main porch, my grandfather would often show me some of the things he saved. My love for books comes from this moment. He showed me these wonderful old books that were Movie Tie-in Books. It set me on a course of collecting that has not stopped to this day.
While I was going to junior high school at PS 198 my father worked in the city. He was a book binder. He would bring me home all the books he thought we would like. I would save my money and go into the city as often as I could and searched the bookstores all over Manhattan and buy myself paperback books. I would come home with shopping bags of them and I could see the look on my parents face. They were very concerned. But I was in my glory. I would fall in love hundreds of times with the graphics on the covers. I learned that they began making movie tie-in books as early as they have been making films.
I hope you enjoy them as much as I still do.
This is so amazing to see a collection like this. I look forward to seeing more.