{"id":340045,"date":"2026-09-07T17:20:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T17:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/340045\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T17:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T17:20:08","slug":"meet-the-man-who-sells-used-books-on-the-street-outside-of-columbia-university","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/340045\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Man Who Sells Used Books on the Street Outside of Columbia University"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Olson selling books to Chris Lee, who came with a list of books she was looking for. Photo by Alexia Massoud.<\/p>\n

By Alexia Massoud<\/p>\n

The buzz on Broadway never stops; everyone is walking \u2014 or likely rushing \u2014 somewhere, be it class, work, or the subway at 116th Street. But for a few minutes on a busy day, Paul Olson\u2019s used-book table serves as an escape for readers to stop and browse \u2014 and, if they\u2019re lucky, walk away with a $4 copy of a great read in good condition.<\/p>\n

In between Columbia Climate School and University Hardware & Housewares, between 113th and 114th Streets, Olson sets up shop on clear-sky days when school is in session. He displays over 20 cardboard boxes filled with books left behind or donated by people, as well as some vinyl records. Many are brand new, still in original packaging.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nothing I\u2019d rather do than this,\u201d Olson said. \u201cI can have real conversations about everything under the sun through selling books.\u201d<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t the original plan, though.<\/p>\n

Olson, 55, moved to New York 30 years ago after dropping out of college in Utah. In the East Village, he used to scavenge for things like trinkets, candleholders, magazines, VHS tapes, books, Rubik\u2019s cubes, toys, and used clothes to ultimately sell and \u201cfind a new home for them.\u201d He stayed away from electronic equipment, though, to avoid being arrested for peddling without a license \u2014 which is a misdemeanor.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut books, you could sell, as long as they\u2019re on a table,\u201d Olson said. \u201cYou don\u2019t get arrested for selling books because the First Amendment allows you to distribute in a printed manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

A vendor license is not required to sell newspapers, periodicals, books, pamphlets, or other written material, or artwork such as paintings, photographs, prints, and sculptures, according to the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection<\/a>. Different rules apply to selling food and selling from a garage or private property.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s what Olson started doing, selling books \u2014 aside from his other job, which is catering.<\/p>\n

For more than five years, Olson has lugged boxes full of books he\u2019s gathered over the years from donations and websites like AbeBooks<\/a> or Alibris<\/a> to the Upper West Side.<\/p>\n

Unloading them from the trunk of his car, he sets up on Broadway weekdays from mid-morning to nighttime \u2014 if there is no rain \u2014 and at the Morningside Farmers Market<\/a> on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Olson\u2019s car trunk, where he stores and transports the books and records to sell on Broadway. Photo by Alexia Massoud.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the farmers market because it\u2019s the bringing together of Columbia, Morningside Heights, and Spanish Harlem,\u201d he said. \u201cWith all that cultural m\u00e9lange, I sell a lot of stuff and talk to a lot of people, so I can engage with the communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris Lee, a Columbia alumna who was in the area, stopped by Olson\u2019s table one recent morning and spent over $40 on books to complete a reading list she has compiled for herself. She said she likes buying used volumes because the books then get a new reader instead of gathering dust on a shelf.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to, for a lack of a better word, abuse the book, with annotations and highlighting,\u201d Lee said. \u201cI like it when it\u2019s used because it\u2019s read through, it wants to be annotated, and I don\u2019t have to treat it so nicely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olson laughed and agreed, adding that he feels he\u2019s giving the books \u201cnew life\u201d as he saves them from the rats and landfills.<\/p>\n

Olson\u2019s sales for specific books have gone up because social media has popularized the challenging reads, like Cervantes\u2019\u201cDon Quixote\u201d and Dumas\u2019 \u201cThe Count of Monte Cristo,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople really like to flex their reads on social media to show off their bookstack and all the books they read at the end of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Profits can be as high as $200-$300 per hour at the farmers market, where the foot traffic is \u201cincredible.\u201d Otherwise, on Broadway, Olson sells about two or three boxes of books in a day. But all of that money gets reinvested into the business because he\u2019s a \u201cbook hoarder\u201d and wants his customers to come back, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many good books we have not read, and when we look at this table, we realize it,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s really humbling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hissam Effendi, a mechanical engineering student at Columbia, said he stopped at the book table because he hadn\u2019t read in a while and could use a book. He purchased the Hubert J. Selby novel, \u201cRequiem for a Dream,\u201d for $12 after Olson gave him a 10-minute spiel about the story. The novel was adapted for a film of the same name in 2000.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to get into the habit of reading books before I watch the films that inspire them,\u201d Effendi said. \u201cI\u2019m big into films, and I want to be able to form my own opinion of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Photo by Alexia Massoud.<\/p>\n

From Hannah Arendt to Ren\u00e9 Girard and Fyodor Dostoevsky, Olson has a book for every crowd: students, professors, readers, and even those who are just starting on their book journeys. What sets him apart are personalized recommendations, because he\u2019s gone through many of the volumes himself, he said.<\/p>\n

An avid reader since childhood, having earned second place in a reading competition in the fourth grade with 137 books, Olson figured his love for reading could be a service to others.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like helping train people to not keep looking at their phones, and instead, pick up their books,\u201d Olson said.<\/p>\n

With our declining attention spans of 47 seconds on any screen, according to Gloria Mark, author of \u201cAttention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity,\u201d that may just be true.<\/p>\n

You can find Olson on Instagram @umbrellahouse_books. <\/p>\n

Subscribe to West Side Rag\u2019s FREE email newsletter\u00a0here<\/a>. And you can Support the Rag\u00a0here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Olson selling books to Chris Lee, who came with a list of books she was looking for. Photo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":340046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75,84,83,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-340045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=340045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/340046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}