THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

At a time when gay bars were hidden behind blank facades and non-descript doors, Giovanni's Room opened at 232 South St., the first queer space in Philadelphia with windows open to the street. Early customers reported trying to work up the nerve to walk in. The inventory was small but the space in which to come out was large. Over the years the store has remained in prominent locations and clearly queer.

The many hundreds of paid staff and volunteers have provided the engine of the store. Ed Hermance, the owner for the past 37 years, would like to thank especially the two longest member, each of whom has worked here more than 30 years, Skip Strickler and Richard Smith. He would like to thank all who have given their skills and love to the store. Among the most prominent ex-staff members are Joseph F. Beam, editor of the first anthology of African American gay men's work, In the Life, and Jim Baker, founder and publisher of Querverlag, Germany's largest publisher of LGBT books.

One of the store's chief achievements was helping foreign queer bookstores-and being helped in return. From the early 1980s through the mid-1990s, Giovanni's Room Wholesale was effectively the only exporter of American LGBT and feminist books, with more than 100 bookstore customers in Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Every manager of Gay's the Word Bookshop in London came for a stay with Giovanni's Room before beginning duties in London. As the export distributor for The Naiad Press, Giovanni's Room sold a copy of Lesbian Nuns: Breaking the Silence to a Vatican library. A mail order customer in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, got gay travel guides.

The principal reason the store has aged so gracefully is the community it serves. In the 1970s people were very eager buyers of the first wave of American LGBT books ever published. When the store faced a landlord who did not want such a business on their property (they weren't going high class, as they subsequently rented the space to a palm reader) and a real estate market that would not rent the store space on a major street, the store's customers lent the store the down payment for our corner property and more than 100 volunteers renovated that building. So the homophobes forced the store to expand and acquire its own property. It's striking that the same community came together three years ago to raise the $50,000 the store needed to rebuild an exterior wall. It is wonderful to work for people who love the store so much.

In the early years of the AIDS crisis, at a time when local, state, and federal agencies were forbidden by law to provide public health information (!), staff from the city's health clinic at Broad & Lombard came to stuff their pockets with the brochures the gay/lesbian community had produced to take back and distribute to their clients, at the risk of their jobs. In the early 1980s Giovanni's Room published an AIDS bibliography, which no one else had done.

Among the services Giovanni's Room provides is the opportunity to see about 50 authors each year. When Leslie Feinberg read from the just-published Stone Butch Blues, only four people came to see her. Now she attracts hundreds wherever she goes. Among the other authors who have visited Giovanni's Room over the years are James Baldwin, Joe Beam, Edmund White, Rita Mae Brown, Sapphire, Colm TÃ"ibín, Alison Bechdel, Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, Samuel R. Delany, Emma Donoghue, Felice Picano, Sarah Schulman, Cheryl Dunyé, CA Conrad, Alan Hollinghurst, and Jeanette Winterson. More than 1,400 people came to see Greg Louganis.

The store offers online 5 million books and 3.5 million ebooks and sends regular announcements of new books in its specialties. The store has available to it millions more used books. The store would love to continue to provide its unique services for at least another 40 years.

Historic business for sale

From a Sept. 5, 2013, press release

Joe McGlone's1987 rendering before we joined the two buildings. The City wouldn't let us put a nice cornice on the corner building.

Ed Hermance, who has owned the store since 1976, plans to retire this winter. "It's been the job of a lifetime," he says. "I can't imagine having had another job that would have engaged my skills and interests as much as Giovanni's Room has. But it is time to find a successor, if there is to be one."

He says for the store to continue, the new owner(s) must have the financial resources to carry the store forward. The store needs new ideas, new money, and new energy to take advantage of the new resources available to a 21st-century business.

Perhaps the greatest advantage will be inheriting the years of experience of staff members and volunteers, who may be easily persuaded to continue. The transfer of knowledge can take place for the asking.

The store's database of 48,000 titles is a massive advantage for someone running an LGBT bookstore.

Long-established relationships with hundreds of publishers and distributors will ease the way for new owners.

The value of the store is in two parts: the business and the buildings. New owners of the business might like to move the store to a new, less expensive location or they might want to pay Ed rent for the current location. Of course they might want to buy the business and the buildings both, which would make financial sense, as the neighborhood seems to be steadily improving, making the property ever more valuable.

Upon Ed's death the proceeds from the sale of the buildings will go to the Delaware Valley Legacy Fund, which advances philanthropy for the LGBTI community through endowment building, fundraising, community outreach and education. The LGBTI community built the store for itself, so its assets will revert to the community.

The Wharton School is considering sending a team of students to assess the store's situation. Their report would certainly be interesting to a prospective owner.

People interested in continuing the store are invited to submit a proposal.