THE BOOK STORE
Upon Show World’s grand opening in 1974, the ‘book store’ co-existed with the film peep booth arcade that extended from the entrance to the main floor, which turned left and continued to the book store, which was located closer to the secondary entrance to Show World at 303 West 42nd Street. Originally the book store (owned by Larry Mills) resembled the aisles of a supermarket, with adult materials methodically arranged pertaining to proclivity on display tables, racks, and bins for maximum exposure of their graphic content. As usual, the premises were spanking clean (a Basciano trademark), with the bookstore exhibiting an impressive spread of pictorial smut, thanks to his partnership with Robert DiBernardo and Star Distributors. The racks showcased the latest hard-core books available at the time, with magazines, sex tabloids, and incestuous erotic paperback books, and a wide range of adult toys, novelties, and marital devices.
Connoisseurs of erotica could gorge on a veritable smorgasbord of pornography in the book store of Show World. Glossy hard-core fuck books, imported and domestic, were vividly displayed in racks and bins; the more over-priced books wrapped tightly in cellophane. These were not magazines, but full color pictorials printed on high quality 80 lb coded stock, with a varnish finish, and a cover price of $30 (discounted at $20). The superb photographic content of these ‘books’ were a visual awakening for the far-flung fetishist, or the briefcase-brandishing businessman who spent too much time on the road. To protect the privacy of the consumer, each purchase (which was nobody’s business) of adult materials were carefully placed ‘under wraps’ in a paper bag sealed with Scotch tape.
The bookstore also featured literally every conceivable adult product manufactured on the smut market; lingerie, lubricants, marital devices, novelties, and dildos of every measurement; from French ticklers to inflatable dolls, and of course nipple clamps, floggers, restraints, and bull whips, for those hell-bent on BDSM. And for those less-endowed: penis-enlargement kits. 8mm Triple X-rated films were also available; previews of which were found in the film peep booth arcade. However with the advent of the VCR, videocassettes dramatically changed everything, as films that were once in porn theaters could now be purchased in either Betamax or VHS. John Colasanti: ‘With the advent of a brand new format, the marketability and availability of the films increased; now they were more accessible. The videocassette was convenient; just pop it in. You could easily rewind or fast-forward. Film projectors and nickelodeons became obsolete.’