Brazenhead: New York's speakeasy bookstore turns a new page - The Guardian

The first year of Michaael's Unsolicited Advice, all together and better than ever.

I only agreed to write this end of times advice column for the obvious reason, the end was near. Now it’s been two years and it’s still kicking.

It was about three years ago now that my boyfriend and I met the broker of our current apartment. On that December morning, we walked down 84th Street, scanning the building numbers until we found our destination. 

For years, Michael Seidenberg had sold books from his Upper East Side apartment, but received an eviction notice in July. Literary New York mourned – but recently the shop has shown new signs of life

For seven years, Brazenhead Books operated out of an apartment at 235 East Eighty-fourth Street. It was, strictly speaking, illegal, and because it was illegal it had to be secret.

The thing about vanishing New York: It’s often us who get lost, not the city.

Michael Seidenberg’s shop, Brazenhead Books, part speakeasy, part bookstore, will soon close.

One of New York City's best-kept secrets, Brazenhead Books is a speakeasy bookstore in an Upper East Side apartment.

A brazen head is said to be a head cast in bronze or brass capable of answering any question.

Mchael Seidenberg has a beard with deckled edges, a boyish face with only minor wear, a spine in fine shape, a mint mind, and a Brooklyn provenance, circa early nineteen-fifties.