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After over three decades of experience working in bookstores in New York City, Gregory Logan found himself in Rochester with thousands of books. Not knowing what to do with them, he began selling them on eBay.
Then, a quaint space on Monroe Avenue, formerly occupied by Cuz Barbershop, became available. It was time to make his lifelong dream come true.
“I realized that this is what I meant to be doing. This was what these books were for,” says Logan, who moved to the area in 2021 to be closer to his family. “These books were meant to be available to people who wanted them.”
He opened McFall’s Books on June 17. One of the things that most surprised Logan since opening the store was the community’s response. He expected to sit at his desk all day and have one or two customers come in. Logan experienced the opposite.
“I was surprised, truly taken aback at the curiosity that the Rochester reading community showed in visiting a new bookstore,” he says.
Once, a customer told Logan that she loved the focus on secondhand books at McFall’s. At other bookstores, she observed, they often have the same books in stock, making each store a largely manufactured experience.
Logan finds that perspective to be one of the core experiences of browsing a secondhand store. Often, bookstores order new books straight from publishers. Logan has a large stock of books in the back of the store, waiting to be put out on the floor. In addition, Logan attends church and library sales to take books off their hands. Patrons can exchange books for cash or store credit.
“Sometimes there are people who have accumulated books for years who are moving or downsizing,” says Logan. “They reach a point in life where it might let some stuff go, and you know we get books that way as well.”
One of the biggest challenges facing McFall’s Books is that it only sells books. Many other independent bookstores in the city are opting for a mixed approach where books are not a main source of income. Logan points to other stores in the area such as Siren and the Sea and Bookeater, which operate as bookstore-cafe hybrid stores.
“When was the last time any of us walked into a new bookstore that was only books?” he says.
While he’s focused on selling books, Logan hopes his store will become a third space—an area outside of work and home for people to meet and develop communities.
“People are really looking for a place to go, a place that feels fun, that feels welcoming, that they can have a variety of experiences,” he notes. “I want people to have events here. I want people to read here. I want to have a children’s story time. … I want to continue to add fresh experiences.”
McFall’s Books is named after Ben McFall, a late bookseller at the famed New York City bookstore, the Strand. McFall was a personal friend and mentor to Logan.
“He was an incredible friend. He was incredibly supportive and encouraging,” Logan says. “He was an incredible wit, and he touched my life deeply as a bookseller, but also as a person, (and) many other people’s as well.”
Logan points to S.R. Ranganathan, an Indian librarian, who wrote in 1931 that every person has their book and every book has its reader.
“I would say, if (your book) is not at McFall’s, I hope it’s at Bookeater, I hope it’s at Yellow Warbler, I hope it’s at the Siren and the Sea, I hope it’s at Rick’s. I hope you found your book,” Logan says.
McFall’s Books is now part of the Rochester Book Crawl, an annual event where patrons can visit over 35 independent bookstores in the Rochester area and participate in a raffle. The Book Crawl runs Aug. 15-23.
Danik Soudakoff is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and a member of the Oasis Project’s third cohort.
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