The Best Niche Bookstores in New York

The Best Niche Bookstores in New York

Thursday, Jan 19, 2023

“For Hard-to-Find Photo Books

David Strettell was working as Mario Testino’s assistant in 2005 when he decided to open Dashwood, a store devoted entirely to photo books. Eighteen years later, the place remains much as it was: a garden-level shop near the Bowery with spare, blond-wood floor-to-ceiling shelves full of contemporary, vintage, and extremely limited-distribution photo books, including a first edition of Luigi Ghirri’s Kodachrome and Gabriele Basilico’s Marocco 1971. The shop also has a robust selection of limited press runs from publishers hard to find elsewhere in the States, like Germany’s Steidl, France’s Editions du Regard, and the U.K.’s Mack. Photographer Tyler Mitchell says that when he was a student at NYU, he would go after class and “spend hours poring through books by Wolfgang Tillmans and Viviane Sassen.” Manager Miwa Susuda, according to filmmaker Yashaddai Owens, has an uncanny ability to recommend books to her longtime customers. “Over time,” says Owens, “Miwa gauges what your interests are through conversations and recommends books — for research or just for your everyday life. She once told me to get a three-volume set by Bruce Davidson. When I came back the next day to buy it, Jay-Z’s estate had taken the entire collection.” “

 

By Kelsey Borovinsky