I lived in Brooklyn for years, but never went to Gage and Tollner, an old-fashioned steakhouse that was an institution there for over 100 years until it closed in 2004. They’re working on reopening soon, and in the process, came across some amazing artifacts. From an article in the New York Times: For an individual, … Continue reading Gage & Tollner Notebooks from the 1960s and 1970s
Every so often, I’ll see a new brand of notebook that interests me, but I don’t feel like spending money on it. I usually snap a photo or write down the brand name, and then look it up online to find out more. Below is a photo I took of a notebook found several months … Continue reading Mysterious HOM Notebook
I thought it would be fun to have a whole week of posts about an old brand of notebooks that used to be ubiquitous and now has become almost– but not quite— extinct: Boorum and Pease. They started out as an independent manufacturer of blank books based in Brooklyn, but since then, they’ve been absorbed … Continue reading This Week’s Theme: Old Notebooks from Boorum & Pease
A neat little article in the New York Times about amateur weather trackers. You can read it online here, but the photos only appear in print: That is quite a dense page of notes!
I am happy to report that my notebooks and I are safely high and dry in Brooklyn, but some of the rest of the city isn’t so lucky. What a terrible storm this has turned out to be, with horrible flooding, fires, power outages and trees falling. I’m not sure when I’ll next be able … Continue reading Update from Notebook Stories HQ
Keep an eye out for these funky notebooks in your favorite gift or stationery shop! I spotted some at Cog & Pearl in Brooklyn a while back… They’re very cute, smaller than the usual cahier-type notebook. See more at Red Horseshoe Paper, notebooks, journals, labels, stationery, diaries, notepads, tattoos, palmistry and more.
These are a bit different from the kinds of notebooks that usually interest me, but I thought they were pretty cool when I saw them recently in a store in Brooklyn called Nova Zembla. They’re about 5 x 7″, with a metal cover. You can also buy them online at this site: UncommonGoods.
There’s an interesting little neighborhood here in Brooklyn called Vinegar Hill– it’s a bit off the beaten path, but worth a short walk from nearby DUMBO to feel like you’re in a bit of a timewarp, and to have dinner at the Vinegar Hill House! The area was just featured on the “Forgotten New York” … Continue reading Notebook Trivia: Boorum & Pease Building
Here’s a nice image from Flickr, from someone who’s obviously a notebook addict! There are Moleskines, of course, but I think I also see a HandBook Journal and a Rhodia Webnotebook in there. You can see the artist’s work here. The photo was taken at the 13th annual D.U.M.B.O. Art Under the Bridge Festival® (Sept … Continue reading Notebook Addict of the Week: Brooklyn Artist James Cospito
Here’s a notebook belonging to the Irish writer Colm Toibin, whose latest novel, “Brooklyn,” has just been published: He wrote “Brooklyn†while teaching at Stanford, and this spring, in little more than a month, he turned out two book reviews and a 10,000-word short story, the first thing he has written on a computer. He … Continue reading Colm Toibin’s Notebook