42 down, ten (+?) to go

Green Apple Books turns 42 this month. The store has evolved greatly since 1967, as has the book business, our neighborhood, the city, and so on. In fact, our evolution is one reason we're still here. Change or die, right?

When Green Apple first opened, it took up only half of what is the now the first floor at 506 Clement (the other half was a shoe repair business). That's about 900 square feet. The store only carried used books and magazines. But founder Rich Savoy soon doubled the width of the store. The photos below are from that era. Eventually, he added new books, comics, the mezzanine, the second floor, the Granny Smith room, and, in 1996, the music annex at 520 Clement. We're up to about 8,000 square feet. 28 employees. Countless good books.

About twelve years ago, Mr. Savoy recognized encroaching burnout and started trying to find successors. After a false start or two, he assembled a three-man team to buy the store from him. And as of today, the ten-year buyout is officially complete. Mr. Savoy is semi-retired at his vineyard in Boonville, where he grows pinot noir and other grapes for sale to top Anderson Valley winemakers. That's a mustachioed Rich Savoy below at the front counter in the 1970s (note the sign by the cash register: "no smoking near register"--that policy still stands!)


The new owners of Green Apple, who have been effectively running the store for about 7 years, are Kevin Ryan, who started in 1987; Kevin Hunsanger, who started in 1991; and Pete Mulvihill, the newcomer with only 16 years of service. Together, that's 56 years of Green Apple experience.

Oh, and Green Apple just signed a ten-year lease on both buildings, so as long as the readers of San Francisco (and the world) continue to support us, we'll do our damnedest to keep Green Apple the welcoming, unique, literary place it is.










Here's Kevin Ryan (far left and far right) with Pete (the cute one at left) and Kevin Hunsanger (in goatee at right). I'm sure there are better pictures, but these old ones leaped out of the historical archive drawer at me today.

Thanks to the last 42 years of customers and excellent booksellers, and here's to the next ten years of good books and good times.

Our Masks

I started working here in 1993 as a temporary assistant to the bookkeeper, so I mostly worked in what passed for the office. When that assignment ended, the owner hired me permanently to work in the receiving room, which I did for about a year before moving to the sales floor, the register, the sections, management, etc.

About 18 months after I was hired, a customer asked me where all the masks came from, and I asked, "what do you mean?" I hadn't noticed the masks. I guess I had my eyes on the books and never looked up. And over the years I have heard a surprising number of long-time customers say the same thing. With the visual cacophony that is Green Apple--shelf talkers and posters and signs and pictures and the books themselves--it's hard to ever look up.

But when you do, you see one of the (many) quirky features that makes Green Apple different from, well, any other bookstore, chain or independent. And to answer the question, the masks have come from all over the world. Some were collected on the original owner's travels, some were sold to the store, some were found in shops by employees.

We are so rich in masks, in fact, that they rest on top of filing cabinets and are hung haphazardly in the window. It's not that we don't love them, it's that we love books the most and we're never caught up enough to catalog, organize, or properly display the masks. Someday.

They were cataloged once, about 20 years ago, and somewhere in our offices we have a binder of slides with some info about many of the masks, but I can't find it today and many more masks have trickled in since then.

Contest time: there is a mask in the store modeled on the original owner (and still landlord) of Green Apple: Richard Savoy. A picture of him from the 1960s is at left, and a few masks are at right. First person to correctly ID the mask in the photo below gets a free Green Apple t-shirt of their choice. Update: We have a winner. Kate Wilson of Drexel Hill, PA got it right. It's the one in the bottom right of the photo.