P&T Knitwear Plans Memorial Day Bookstore Opening on Orchard Street
P&T Knitwear, the latest bookstore to call the Lower East Side home, set its opening date for next month.
Target launch is Memorial Day weekend.
The new Orchard Street venture occupies 3,000-square-feet at the base of Hotel Indigo (nee Orchard Hell Building), and has been under construction since last fall. Upon debut, it will carry titles for children, teens, and adults spanning all genres, plus there will be a particular focus on fiction and nonfiction highlighting New York City. Additionally, an events amphitheater and a free podcast studio will be available for community use.
We are told that the store is currently hiring, and that there will be a “pop-up galley giveaway” for Indie Bookstore Day on April 30 outside the building.
The business owner is venture capitalist and philanthropist Bradley Tusk – founder of the Gotham Book Prize. He partnered with Julie Wernersbach, a bookseller touting some 15 years’ experience, for the new venture.
The store’s namesake – certainly a misnomer – derives from a knitwear company on the Lower East Side, which was actually co-founded by Tusk’s grandfather back in the 1950s.
P&T Knitwear marks the third independent brick-and-mortar bookstore to open on the Lower East Side in the last year (behind Sweet Pickle Books and Yu and Me Books).
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