As he explains the store’s mission, Keaveny comes in with a new find wrapped in a pink Garment District plastic bag. The two men gather around the copy of Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis.

“I try to find early American works that should be preserved. These things deserve a decent home,” Atherton says. “The concept here is save old books, pass them on and make a profit.”

Ornate green and black dust jackets of early 20th century fantasy fill Keaveny’s bookshelf, which stands diagonally across the small room. According to Keaveny, a young man with unruly curly hair, Converse sneakers and large horn-rimmed glasses, lovers of rare and first-edition books tend to have highly specialized interests.

“I’m into the history of speculative fiction,” he says, referring to the array of Jules Verne novels displayed in his bookcase. “It’s prophetic. It’s just fascinating. People save these things for a reason.”

The JFK Street Guild

Atherton, Keaveny and the cast of characters at Atherton’s new bookstore join a community of antiquarian book lovers in the building.

As Keaveny works to organize his shelves, John E. Link stops by briefly from his own antiquarian and out-of-print bookstore, Karakoram Books, located just one floor upstairs.

The men joke with the casual nature of old friends.

Link’s store specializes in travel, exploration and discovery books, he says. Among his best finds are an atlas of maps of Asia from 1658 and a history of Wales from 1584 that claims the Welsh discovered America before Christopher Columbus (a book that would sell for about $2,500, he says).

Just down the hall from Karakoram Books, another small store advertises a book-binding service. Ahab Rare Books also advertises scarce, rare and first-edition books.

Although it is not the most lucrative field, Link says, it’s a rewarding choice of career. He has been in the antiquarian book business for four years and bought the store last July.

“You just get to meet the darndest people,” Link says.

He mentions one regular customer who grooms poodles for a living and spends all his extra money on books with engravings.

“This is a business that has a lot of characters in it,” Link says. “You get your share of oddballs and curmudgeons, but we mostly get along.”

And bookbinding as a career has a long and interesting history, Keaveny says. He describes the bookselling and bookbinding trade as a “guild,” where “young pups” apprentice with more established bookbinders.