Ben McFall, ‘the Heart of the Strand,’ Is Dead at 73

He was the longest-tenured bookseller in the history of New York’s most storied bookstore, and he perpetuated its bohemian character.



Ben McFall in 2013. He was the longest-tenured bookseller in the history of New York’s renowned Strand bookstore, where he was in charge of the fiction section.Credit...Julie Glassberg for The New York Times

By Alex Traub
Dec. 30, 2021

Ben McFall, the longest-tenured bookseller in the history of the Strand, New York’s renowned bookstore, who for decades peered above his spectacles at a line of acolytes, tourists and young colleagues for whom he incarnated the store’s erudite but easygoing spirit, died on Dec. 22 at his home in Jersey City, N.J. He was 73. ... Jim Behrle, his partner, said the cause was a fall. He added that Mr. McFall suffered from pulmonary fibrosis, which had recently rendered him nearly bedridden.

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Benjamin Julius McFall was born on June 7, 1948, in Detroit, and grew up there. His parents, Lester and Joetta (Reddick) McFall, were schoolteachers. ... He graduated from Olivet College in Michigan with a bachelor’s degree in French and music in 1971. He moved with college friends to Connecticut and worked at the Remarkable Book Shop in Westport. A co-worker told Mr. McFall she could see him at the Strand. He had never heard of the place, but in 1978 he arrived in New York and interviewed for a job. Fred Bass, the store’s owner at the time, hired him on the spot.

In that era, the Strand grubstaked downtown bohemia. In addition to Ms. Sante, figures like Patti Smith and Tom Verlaine, the frontman of the band Television, worked as clerks, earning enough to rent crummy apartments, buy records and go to nightclubs. Mr. McFall contributed to an issue of Stranded, Ms. Sante’s zine, that also included a collage by Jean-Michel Basquiat and work by writers who would go on to prominence, like Kathy Acker and Darryl Pinckney.

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Aside from Mr. Behrle, Mr. McFall leaves no immediate survivors. A man Mr. Behrle described as the love of Mr. McFall’s life, Tim Pollock, died of AIDS in 1985. His ashes, which Mr. McFall kept, will be buried alongside Mr. McFall’s ashes in Detroit. ... As he grew sicker, Mr. McFall insisted on continuing to work. He spent about half his paycheck on Ubers that would pick him up at his door in Jersey City and drop him off as close as possible to the Strand’s entrance. Because of his illness, he had to stop to catch his breath every 15 feet.

For the sake of his safety during the pandemic, Mr. McFall was moved to corporate offices away from the public and his usual spot on the ground floor. There was no more line of fans. Yet Mr. McFall, who was so attached to his Strand name tag that he sometimes wore it around his apartment, chose to keep it on even though he no longer spoke to customers. ... It read: “Benjamin. Ask me.”