Past and future collide in NY-centric novel
Brooklyn BookBeat: Author to read in Bay Ridge
In “Astor Place Vintage” (Touchstone Books/Simon & Schuster), a novel by New York-based writer Stephanie Lehmann, the past and the future intersect through the lives of two young women.
Amanda Rosenbloom, owner of a shop called Astor Place Vintage, is drawn to the history she unfolds through a century-old journal while 20-year-old Olive Westcott, who lives in the midst of Victorian ideals that constrain her freedom, yearns for liberties that the future might bring. Amanda’s glimpse into the past begins when she visits a Manhattan apartment to appraise and purchase clothing from a wealthy, elderly woman. It is there that she discovers a journal concealed in the lining of a fur muff – a journal that belonged to Olive.
Olive had moved to New York with her father in 1907 in the hopes of becoming a department store buyer. But when her father passes away, her finances leave her in no position to pursue her ambition. She instead accepts a low-paying job as a saleswoman at the Siegel-Cooper Department Store (the building still stands today as a Bed, Bath & Beyond on 18th Street & 6th Avenue).