GIOVANNI'S ROOM

With down town swelling already with hustle and bustle with out of towners in for gay Pride, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my favorite place to hang out and get my literature. If your in from out of town, one must stop by Giovanni's Room. Friends will tell you, I am by no means a big box, or on line shopper, and like to support local shops first.  Giovanni's Room is located on the corner of 12th and Pine Street in Philadelphia's gayborhood. The main building was built in 1820.  The longest owner Ed Hermance who retired, scared everyone here as to what may happen to it when he announced a couple years back he was retiring, but the Philly Aids Thrift bought it thankfully.

 The history of the place started with Tom Weinberg, Dan Sherbo and Bern Boylethe who opened Giovanni's Room in 1973 on South Street. The store was closed shortly afterward due to a homophobic landlord. Ed  Hermance and Arleen Oshan then stepped in and paid $500 for the business in 1976. The store then moved to 12th and Pine,  but was again eventually forced by the landlord to close. It was able to gather support from the gay and lesbian community and eventually reopened and stayed opened.  The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission unveiled a marker on October 15, 2011, to commemorate the location of Giovanni’s Room, as it is the country's first, and oldest LGBT bookstore. 

This gave me a chuckle

Owner Ed Hermance closed the doors on the historic bookstore back in 2015 due to the financial burden. Hermance  said he had lost between $10,000-$15,000 in order to keep the bookstore open, competeing with online and big book sellers. Giovanni's Room, named after James Baldwin's novel, served as a refuge and cultural center at the onset of the modern lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender civil rights movement, and gave us a safe place to read and view LGBTmaterial and a place to relax in peace. The store provided resources to those working to gain legal rights for LGBT people, and sells everything from records and cd, coffee table books, fiction, non fiction, cards and gifts, mostly all by LGBT artist and authors.  Philly AIDS Thrift bought it from a retiring Ed  and is entering its fourth year, and contributes $20,000 a month to the AIDS Fund.  They have done a great job bussiness wise, and always said they wanted to preserve the historic role of Giovanni's Room as the nation's oldest LGBT bookstore, and they agreed with Ed to maintain $15,000 in new inventory, at all times, of the most important back-stock books and new LGBT titles as they are released.

Some of my last purhases....

Less has been a very entertain g read thus far...

A safe space in the city for over 40 plus years! It's awesome Philly Aids Thrift is preserving and continuing to grow a valuable site for the LGBT community. An institution really. I still get lost in there every time I down in the city. Plus one can still run into some hot literary nerds. I like hot literary nerds. I and one got into a conversation over a book, which lead to other conversations, and after an hour and half, we went to futher talk over drinks, which then lead to sex in his apartment where to date, I think I had one of the best ever blow jobs of my life. But you don't what to hear that story.