Deacon Maccubbin, owner of Lambda Rising bookstores, purchased the bookstore to prevent the historically significant bookstore from closing. In January 2003 Lingle announced that the bookshop would close due to financial difficulties. In June 1996 Offenbaker sold the store to Larry Lingle. Rodwell sold the bookshop in March 1993 to Bill Offenbaker, three months before Rodwell's death of stomach cancer. Įarly organizing meetings for the first Pride Parade in New York City were held at the bookshop in 1970. In March 1968 Rodwell began publishing a monthly newsletter from the bookshop, calling it HYMNAL. And Oscar Wilde was the most obvious at the time, so I called it the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookshop. So I tried to think of the most prominent person whose name I could use who is most readily identifiable as a Homosexual by most people, someone who's sort of a pseudo-martyr. I wanted a name that would tell people what the shop was about. On how he chose the shop's name, Rodwell said: Despite a limited selection of materials when the bookstore was first established, Rodwell refused to stock pornography and instead favored literature by gay and lesbian authors. Rodwell did not consider himself to be a bookseller businessman but, rather, a person who at the age of 13 set out to help change the world's view of gay people and of gay people's own self-image. The main thing was to be out on the street. I wanted the Society to set up a combination bookstore, counseling services, fund-raising headquarters, and office. I was trying to get the (Mattachine) Society to be out dealing with the people instead of sitting in an office. Pictured are Fred Sargeant (l.) and Craig Rodwell (r.).Īs a member and vice president of the Mattachine Society, Rodwell sought to make Mattachine more visible to gays and society at large by opening a storefront to cater to the growing local gay community in Greenwich Village, saying: Advertisement for the Bookshop which ran in Queen's Quarterly magazine in 1968.
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