of inventory was all bought up in one large lot for a bid of only $400,000 by the representative of the landlords. Gotham Book Mart Collection In late 2008, the University of Pennsylvania received over 200,000 items from the Gotham Book Mart's inventory as an anonymous gift. Penn will catalog the Gotham Book Mart Collection and make it available for teaching and research. Penn will also digitize materials from the Collection, and create public events such as lectures and exhibits based on its contents. In the spring of 2019, Penn Libraries displayed a collection of the Gotham Book Mart collection at the Kislak Center for Rare Books, Collections and Manuscripts. The exhibit, called "Wise Men Fish Here", contained 300 items and was hosted at the Van Pelt Library. Awards New York Magazine's Best of New York: Independent Bookstore, 2000. Major authors and celebrities linked to the store Many notable authors, celebrities, and major figures involved in publishing were customers of the store and friends with the owners and staff. The Nobel Prize committee in Stockholm was known to order copies of books from the Gotham when they were considering various authors for the prize. Authors and celebrities who frequented and shopped at the store: Edward Albee Woody Allen W. H. Auden Warren Beatty Saul Bellow Alexander Calder Truman Capote Dick Cavett Charlie Chaplin Ina Claire Jean Cocteau Melora Creager E. E. Cummings Don DeLillo Theodore Dreiser Buckminster Fuller Abigail Folger (worked as a clerk at the Gotham) Allen Ginsberg (worked as a clerk at the Gotham) John Guare George Gershwin & Ira Gershwin Edward Gorey Martha Graham Lillian Hellman Katharine Hepburn LeRoi Jones (worked as a clerk at the Gotham) James Joyce Garson Kanin Alison Lurie Norman Mailer H. L. Mencken Arthur Miller Henry Moore Marianne Moore Christopher Morley David Nolan Eugene O'Neill Anaïs Nin Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis John Dos Passos George Plimpton Ezra Pound Man Ray Philip Roth J. D. Salinger Marian Seldes Dame Edith Sitwell Patti Smith Patti Smith worked at Scribner's, around the corner, as documented in her memoir, Just Kids. She hung out at Gotham Book Mart and they later published her chapbook Witt. Stephen Spender Gertrude Stein Dylan Thomas John Updike Rudolph Valentino Gore Vidal Jose Garcia Villa Andy Warhol Edmund White Thornton Wilder Tennessee Williams (worked as clerk at the store, lasting less than a day) See also Books in the United States References