The Most Famous Trash Worshipper in Morningside Heights
All of these books were somebody’s garbage. Until they reached Paul’s table.
“I own the website, trashworship.org. Yeah, I trash worship,” says Paul, a figure recognized by Columbia students as “the Broadway bookseller guy.” I was standing on the sidewalk, inhaling the fumes of the burning bowl of frankincense and observing his tables covered in neatly piled books and vinyls of all kinds. A known figure of Morningside Heights, distinctly wearing a beanie or cap that reads “janitor,” Paul has been working in the Manhattan area since the early 2000s. Despite this, few know of his massive commitment to serving his community and the original story of how he became a bookseller.
Paul grew up in Utah and studied biology at the University of Utah before dropping out. He battled alcoholism and attended rehab before regaining his sobriety and moving to New York City in the early 2000s. Paul later enrolled at Bronx Community College, where he studied film production and communications. He began a nonlinear career journey to get by.
“I’ve worked all kinds of odd jobs and I still do—you gotta pay rent. I’ve been a movie extra, a bartender, subletter, all sorts of things,” he told Sundial. Paul would eventually discover his niche: finding the beauty in what others discard as trash.
Paul started selling books when his sister’s boyfriend granted him a small space between two buildings on Houston Street. “‘Why don't you set up a book table in front of the space, a book and record table, because I think it'll slow people down, and then they'll look inside,’” he recalls his sister’s boyfriend saying. “So I started setting up there, and I was able to pay rent.”
When I asked him where he gets his books from, Paul described his eclectic sources: “I knew this lady who would bring me books. Her husband was a funeral director at the funeral parlor. And so anytime somebody died, and if they didn't have relatives or whatever, the funeral parlor would say, ‘You can go into this place and clean it out.’ And so we started selling dead people's stuff.”
Over the years, Paul has grown more familiar with the Columbia community. He often acquires books from graduating students and departing professors. “They sometimes exchange with me a stack of old books that they no longer need for a fresh set from my table. It’s symbiotic,” he said.
Paul also regularly dumpster dives, rescuing books that one would never guess were scavenged from beneath a Koronet Pizza box. He pointed to a few copies: a crisp philosophy textbook, the works of Homer, and The Art of War. Don’t be too quick to dismiss Paul’s books because of their past lives—he assured me that he doesn’t take anything “too dirty.”
Paul made it clear that he dedicates himself to eliminating waste and finding purpose in things that others cast aside. “This thing would now enter the status of not necessarily trash, but just something that they didn't need anymore,” he said. “It was orphaned, so I have to be its custodian and put it into another home.”
In Paul’s view, his books live multiple lives through shared ownership. “I like the term of being a custodian, of taking responsibility for items, or a person or whatever, because it can't care for itself,” he said. “So you have to be its custodian, and you have to take custody of it. And, yeah, these are my books for now, but I'm passing them on. I'm just guiding them onto their next home.”
From our conversation, I realized Paul was a man of his word when it came to sustainable living. Like the Jains, he said, he only wants the “fallen fruit.” He added, “ I won't pick it off a tree—that's no good. It has to fall on the ground, and then I will pick it up.” Indeed, he told me that he hasn’t bought anything new in the last decade—“with the exception of socks and underwear, of course.” You could say he was radicalized, rejecting corporatism and finding meaning instead in his own spirituality and the community around him.
Previously, Paul worked directly with the Harlem community as an organizer for Harlem Habitat, a pre-Internet service helping locals lease their rooms to university students in the area. “I want to work with people right here, where I live, and be part of that community,” he said. This, I came to understand, was his reason for leaving corporate life behind to pursue freelance work.
When Paul attended university, he initially considered becoming a forest ranger. But his love of humans and passion for building community stopped him from isolating himself in the wilderness. “I want to give. I like to give people books to read and instead say: ‘Read this book, tell me how you liked it, I think you will,’” he said. He noted his Sagittarius sun sign, showed me his chart, and said, “It’s in my nature, you see. I am a giver.”
I asked him about the value he places on maintaining physical media in the digital age. “These books have something that the digitized versions cannot have, and that’s a touch of humanity,” he said. “Every annotation and underline brings a little more personal value now, which was not a thing back before computers. Used books connect us, and I try my best to bring that to the new generation.”
Paul pointed to a page in an old Penguin Random House Classics book marked with annotations from a previous owner. He believes annotations are wrongly frowned upon; instead, they should be regarded as intimate or raw mediums for sharing thoughts and connecting. Annotations found in a used book, as Paul says, should be seen as a form of connection with another person: something that can facilitate the sharing of thoughts and feelings across time instead of being a mere marker of depreciation. I thought of the times I bought used copies of Literature Humanities books at Book Culture and found myself pleasantly surprised to see the former owners’ notes.
That connection has been lost today, Paul says, because of technology. “You don't need to ask somebody for information because of Google. You don't need to go to your friend's house who has a set of encyclopedias,” he said.
Paul told me that many people have interviewed him since he began selling books in the Columbia area. “Sometimes it's a paper about interesting characters, or crazy citizens of New York,” he said, but few have asked about his story. Over the course of our multi-hour conversation, I came to understand how much Paul values the opportunity to share his story and practices. I was moved by his commitment to preserving books and eliminating mindless waste. Take this brief account of our conversation as a reminder to listen to the people within your community: Appreciate not only the stories within books, but also the story of the book itself, before it ever landed on your desk.
You can find Paul’s table on Broadway somewhere between the 116th Street subway station and Tom’s Restaurant, rain or shine.
Ms. Pearson is a rising sophomore at Columbia College studying biochemistry. She is a staff writer for Sundial.
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