Albertine Books, opened in 2014, offers the largest collection in the United States of French-language books and translations from French into English. It is located in a landmark building at 972 Fifth Avenue, between 78th and 79th Streets, and across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In addition to its bookstore and reading room, Albertine Books hosts frequent public events and organizes French Book Corners in a network of independent bookstores throughout the United States.
Historical landmark
Albertine Books is in the landmark Payne Whitney House that now also houses the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in New York. The high Italian Renaissance building was designed by Stanford White, also known as the architect of the second Madison Square Garden and the Washington Square Arch. White did not live to see the completion of his building. He was murdered in 1906 by the husband of Evelyn Nesbit, a model, chorus girl, and actress with whom White had a previous relationship. The murder led to a press frenzy for what the press at the time dubbed the Trial of the Century. The French government purchased the building in 1952, at the initiative of structural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, who was then the first French cultural counsellor to the United States. The building gained further notoriety in 1996 when an art historian spotted what turned out to be a long-ignored Michelangelo sculpture in the lobby of the Fifth Avenue building. Michelangelo’s Young Archer is now on loan across the street at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, while a replica is still in place in the lobby of the French Cultural Services building.
Albertine Books launch
The bookstore and reading room of Albertine Books were opened to the public in September 2014, with over 14,000 titles from 30 French-speaking countries. Albertine Books was conceived by Antonin Baudry former French Cultural Counsellor, as a hub for Franco-American intellectual exchange and was named after Marcel Proust's character. The bookstore’s interior was designed by French designer Jacques Garcia, known for his work on the Chateau du Champ de Bataille in Normandy, France and The NoMad Hotel in New York City. “This is not intended as a retail place. It’s more like a grand private library, with nothing that you wouldn’t want to have at home,” said Baudry. It is now New York’s only French bookshop and reading room, following the closing in 2009 of the Librairie de France, which had been a New York institution at Rockefeller Center for over 70 years.
Ongoing activities
In addition to its bookstore and reading room, Albertine Book manages a busy schedule of cultural events. Its annual Night of Philosophy gathers dozens of philosophers and other intellectuals for 20-minute presentations that run all night long. To promote French literature throughout the United States, Albertine Books has started a French Corner program with a network of other bookstores in the US that receive curated selections of French and Francophone titles. Participating bookstores include , Community Bookstore, , Seminary Co-op, , Book Soup, , , , and Politics and Prose. In 2018, Albertine Books launched the Albertine Prize, to recognize American readers’ favorite French-language fiction that has been translated into English.
