The Greenwich Village Bookshop Door: A Portal to Bohemia, 1920-1925 December 8, 2011

As early as 1921, noteworthy visitors to Frank Shay's bookshop, located at 4 Christopher Street in the heart of Greenwich Village, began signing the narrow door that opened onto the store's back room. When the shop closed in 1925, manager Juliette Koenig preserved the door and, with it, a revelatory slice of cultural history. Signed by 238 writers, artists, actors, publishers, and other community members, this unusual artifact presents a unique opportunity to reconstitute the intersecting communities that made the Village an epicenter of American modernism. The exhibition unravels the dense web of professional, intellectual, and personal connections that may be found between many of the seemingly unrelated names on the door and shows how a single artifact can set off a chain reaction, revealing connections and influences that are otherwise forgotten.