From Bio to books: The long path to the 'Last Word'

Larry Maltz graduated from Penn two decades ago as a pre-med biology major. Now, he runs an on-campus used bookstore.

That's odd enough, but to hear him talk about how he managed to land a new location on the 40th Street Corridor between Walnut and Spruce streets, you'd think he might have gone to Wharton.

"I went to Penn and told them exactly what I wanted," he said. "Exactly where I was going to do it, the renovations that were going to be needed. They kind of rolled their eyes at first. But, after many months of negotiations, I guess, and of having their committee meetings and such, they agreed to let me have this spot."

When the University decided that they were going to overhaul the 3900 block of Walnut Street - the Last Word's former home - most area tenants were exiled to the outskirts of campus.

The Philly Diner was able to move just a block down the street, but College Pizza was forced to move inside of Strikes Bowling Alley, West Philadelphia Locksmith got shoved out to 42nd and Chestnut streets, and Power Yoga got bumped all the way to 35th and Lancaster streets, just to name a few.

So, why did a used bookstore get a prime location?

Ed Datz, Penn's executive director of real estate, says it was a combination of practical concerns and the Last Word's unique nature.

Datz says a restaurant was not a viable option because it would have required too much work to create the proper ventilations through the offices on the building's second floor.

He added that other options were considered, but, in the end, Maltz and the Last Word were the "natural fit." The space was the right size, and no other 3900 Walnut street tenant relied so heavily on window shopping.

"He's a local operator. He's somebody who we think has a good base of customers, and, ultimately, we think that he adds value to that strip," Datz said.

"He adds to the flavor of the retail mix."

According to Maltz, it took about six months to get the deal completely hammered out and four days in the middle of December moving his operation to the new location.

On the first day, he started out with a large group of volunteers, but, with that many people, he soon found it impossible to keep his stock of books - 50,000 in total - organized.

After that first day, he worked with just one of his employees, schlepping books 'round the clock. Using the same cardboard carts that students use to move into the dorms, Maltz estimates he made somewhere between 200 and 300 trips between the two stores. He says he moved books at one point for over 24 hours straight, while his employee logged a 31-hour shift.

"It went a lot smoother than it could have gone," Maltz said. "We were up and running in no time."

Now that the move is over, though, there's still no rest. He works 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. nearly every day - he worked 358 days last year and 355 the year before.

As for medical school?

"I was a young person," he says, explaining that he simply lost interest in medicine when he graduated school.

"I know I'm a lot happier doing what I'm doing than if I had gone the other route."

A few years after graduating Penn, he started working in another used-book store in Philadelphia, and he stayed there from 1990-1999. He opened the Last Word on campus at the 39th and Walnut street location in 2002 but was thrilled with the opportunity to move it to 40th Street.

"40th Street's perfect for me," he says.

"If I were down, say, on 34th street, I would lose a lot of my West Philadelphia traffic; if I was out on 45th and Baltimore or somewhere, I would lose all my Penn traffic. This is a real nice middle ground for us."

The new rent is steep, he says, but he moves enough books to make it "worthwhile." He's never been worried about competition from big booksellers, like the nearby Penn Bookstore, operated by Barnes & Noble.

"To put it simply, a lot of the books I have here started off at Borders and Barnes & Noble," he said. "Every time they sell a book, that's another used book."

Datz said his current lease runs for the standard five years, he but thinks that Maltz and the Last Word should be in the new location for awhile.

Maltz agrees: "I have a feeling we're going to be here a long, long, long, long time."

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