Homeless book peddler confronts tangled epilogue in Harvard Square
By Bella English, Globe Staff | March 31, 2009
Larry Millman was browsing at one of his favorite places in Cambridge and ended up with a handful of used books, including "Lingua ex Machina: Reconciling Darwin and Chomsky with the Human Brain."
"A little light reading for the bathroom," he quipped as he forked over $5 for the book and a couple of others. Millman, an author, is a steady customer at Almost Banned in Harvard Square Booksellers, a sidewalk bookstall run by a homeless man.
But the Massachusetts Avenue stand is closing today, and with it goes one more quirky piece of Harvard Square. Ken O'Brien, who has sold or given away tens of thousands of books since opening nearly three years ago, is giving away the last of his stash.
O'Brien, the first and only homeless person to belong to the Harvard Square Business Association, said he is tired of fighting City Hall.
His story is a long, involved one that includes getting arrested twice, obtaining various permits, and being moved onto subway grates by the Cambridge superintendent of streets, only to have the MBTA say he couldn't set up on its property. When he tried to open a book business in a nearby church, he found he couldn't get liability insurance. When he tried to get a tax identification number, he said, "they wanted all sorts of paperwork" that he couldn't provide, especially since he had a half-dozen other homeless people working for him on commission. Now his peddler's permit has lapsed, and he said he has grown weary of filling out forms.
"It's the paperwork that killed me," O'Brien said. Decades of living on the streets have weathered his face beyond his 55 years. He says he ran a similar business in New York and was never hassled.
The city of Cambridge says it has been working with O'Brien and that the only problem now is that he hasn't applied for a new permit.
O'Brien, who grew up a few blocks away from his bookstall, stuck his thumb out at age 17 and spent the next 35 years riding the roads and rails around the country. "I came home to retire," he said, "and the books would have been my retirement."
His books came from several sources, most notably a place in Rhode Island that would deliver 1,000-pound boxes of books to him for free. O'Brien sold the books for $2 each, putting the excess in a storage unit he rented. But each winter, when it became too cold to work outside, he started giving the books away - "hoping that people would remember me in the spring." In the winter, he'd get by on what he'd saved, with occasional panhandling.
As he speaks, a woman in an sport utility vehicle pulls up to the curb and asks if he would like several bags of books. He thanks her and begins putting them on the shelves.
His family, as he calls it, consists of "Frenchie," or Earlene French, his longtime girlfriend; along with Charlie, an 11-year-old black and white cat; and Penny, a 6-year-old German short-haired pointer he rescued from a puppy mill. The animals, which sit or lie patiently atop the "mobile home" O'Brien fashioned for them, attract as much attention from passersby as the books. At night he drapes a tarp over the bookstall area, and the four of them share sleeping bags to keep warm.
O'Brien's legal problems began shortly after he set up shop in June 2006. After he was arrested, the Department of Public Works said he needed a sidewalk obstruction permit that would cost $1,000. O'Brien took it to court, and a judge ruled that he needed only a peddler's permit. But when he went back to his bookselling, he was arrested again.
That's when a judge appointed Cambridge lawyer Daniel Beck to take his case. Beck recalls that city officials were using an antiquated law against O'Brien. Because he was selling only books - printed matter protected by the First Amendment - District Court Judge Severlin Singleton III deemed it a constitutionally protected activity. "They found this obscure law about peddlers with which to charge him," he said. "It's the first, last, and only time I've ever seen it used."
O'Brien says he then helped draft the first peddler's permit in Cambridge in decades. Superintendent of Streets William Dwyer inspected his spot, in front of J. August Co. clothing store, drew a map, and assigned O'Brien a few yards down, on the MBTA grates. When the city finally gave him a business certificate, it was good only for a few months - not the four years allowed by the state, says O'Brien. Then the MBTA told him to move.
But Cambridge City Solicitor Donald Drisdell says the city tried to work with O'Brien after the court ruling. The ordinance barred peddlers from Harvard Square because the streets were narrow and congested at the time the law was written, Drisdell says. Though O'Brien obtained permits for 2006 and 2007, he refused to get one for 2008, Drisdell says. "Our position is that anyone who wants to set up on a sidewalk has to get a permit from the city and the city will work with them. . . . He has indicated his refusal to do that."
Though O'Brien and French had earned enough money from the books to rent an apartment last summer, they became homeless again in February when their hopes for expanding the business hit a snag.
The plan was to start several bookstands on wheels that would support 15 to 20 other homeless people.
In the square, the couple are known by other homeless adults and runaways as "Mom" and "Pop" because of their propensity to share an extra blanket, food, or a few bucks.
Though several customers expressed anger and sadness at his imminent departure, O'Brien doesn't want anyone feeling sorry for him.
He's got a plan. He'll apply for Social Security insurance, pitch a tent in a park for the spring and summer, then head for Arizona with his "family" in the fall. "We'll try to get some llamas, and we'll walk into the mountains," he said.
But their longtime customers are still dismayed.
"I come by here every day, and it redeems my visit to a part of Cambridge that is becoming increasingly colorless, faceless, and franchised," Millman said. "I think it's a terrible sign of the times and one less reason for me to visit Harvard Square."
