BookWars is a creative documentary which is told in an unconventional, narrative style. The film opens with the narrator (who is also the film's director) driving out West along a desert highway, relating to a suggested passenger (the viewer) his previous experiences as a street side bookseller in New York City.

The entire documentary – including the central events involving his experiences among the street booksellers in New York – is thus "told" as a long conversation.

The narrator describes his post-graduation years in New York, and how he ended up at one point virtually penniless.

Driven by a desperate need to pay the rent, he resorts to wheeling his own books out to the street to try to sell them. He reveals that he was not only successful in making a significant amount of cash on that first day, but he has also met a variety of interesting and strange characters of the streets of New York – including other street booksellers.

A motley assortment of street booksellers on West 4th street, in Greenwich Village, New York City, are first introduced.

Introducing the Booksellers

Among them: “Slick” Rick Sherman, a semi-professional magician; Al Mappo, so named because he only sells maps and atlases; Emil, who says only he "escaped”, though we do not know from where; and Pete Whitney: 'King of the Booksellers', toad collector, and collage artist.

BookWars next introduces another group of street booksellers who hawk their trade on nearby 6th Avenue. Mainly black and minority individuals, they ply books and magazines in parallel fashion to the nearby West 4th street booksellers, who are primarily white. The booksellers on 6th Avenue suffer greater exposure to the law, with many claiming this to be due to racial profiling.

Some of the significant personalities that are introduced on 6th Avenue include: Marvin, always wearing his trademark black hat; Ron, from Jamaica – charismatic, streetwise and outspoken; Grady (whose books are seen confiscated by the NYPD later in the film); and Mudrick, better known as 'Slim'.

After the introduction of the primary characters (including the narrator bookseller himself), BookWars discusses, mainly through informal testimony, the various aspects of the street bookseller's life in chapter-by-chapter fashion.

Tools of the Trade

The tools and tricks of the street bookseller's trade are revealed: ways and techniques to maximize income; how to deal with difficult, and sometimes dangerous customers; and where and how to get more books.

A chapter of BookWars also reveals how the booksellers have a right to distribute literature (commercially or otherwise) in public, as per the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

BookWars is structured as a “year in the life” style movie, although the film was actually produced over several seasons, from 1995 to 1999. When winter comes, and the streets are too snow-filled and cold to hawk books, the booksellers are shown in their various off-season modes and occupations. “Slick” Rick performs card and magic tricks at parties; Pete Whitney grooms cats for old ladies; and the narrator heads out to New Mexico to work on a Western*. (*Which was actually a movie called The Desperate Trail IMDB)

Marv and Ron, however, continue to sell books throughout the winter on busy 6th Avenue, and the film follows them as they scour for books and pornographic magazines in the trash in Soho.

Finally, Spring comes, and the booksellers emerge from their off-season to sell books as usual for another season – or so they think. BookWars proceeds to reveal the street-level effects of then-New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s controversial “Quality of Life” campaign, which sought to remove informal, unregistered entrepreneurs and other individuals from the streets of New York City.

Quality of Life

When Rudolph Giuliani was elected Mayor of New York City in 1993, he devised a program colloquially referred to as 'Quality of Life'. The proposed aim was to clean up the city of New York in adherence to sociological/criminological notions of the 'Broken Window Theory.'

The NYPD begins to enforce obscure technicalities which govern the uses and dimensions of the sidewalks, thereby making it more difficult to earn a livelihood. A new tax identification number requirement is introduced, creating bureaucratic obstacles, especially for those street booksellers who are marginal or virtually homeless.

Nearby New York University unlawfully places imposing, massive planters on the sidewalk in an attempt to drive the street booksellers away. Finally (especially on 6th Avenue where the majority of black street booksellers are active) the NYPD comes to confiscate and haul away books.

What was worth cleaning up was of course subjectively determined by those intent on doing the cleaning.

Besides "unsavory" institutions like porn shops, New York's Quality of Life plan was also designed to control and limit individuals who existed outside of the system, especially those who lived on or made a living on the street.

The first targets were the most visible and also the least organized (and therefore the most defenseless): the homeless and the semi-homeless, ala, the once-ubiquitous squeegee guys.

Inevitably, street vendors of all sorts were challenged, including street booksellers all over the city--despite their First Amendment Rights.

Bookseller Resistance

Many of the booksellers resisted, thanks to pro bono legal assistance and their own petitioning efforts. And in the end, despite some areas of the city being shut down to street bookselling, the booksellers withstood many of the initial challenges that the Mayor's Quality of Life plan presented.

On W4th street, the police acted with more restraint unless prompted by an outside complainant. Most of the officers the filmmaker encountered as a caucasian (*minus suntan) street bookseller were fairly reasonable, and they often admitted they had better things to do then to confront sidewalk booksellers.

The nearby University appeared to consider street booksellers to be incongruent with their corporate image. Thus, they sought to do away with them by applying steady pressure via the local 9th precinct. Under the umbrella of the Mayor's Quality of Life program, the University whittled away at the civil liberties of those individuals who made a living selling books on West 4th street and in other areas in its sphere of influence.

Community Support

In the end it was many of the University's 's own professors and students who signed the petitions presented at community board meetings in defense of street booksellers.

In the documentary, some street booksellers resist and assemble to form an unlikely common front to protest against the actions of the city. Others, who have had their books confiscated, wait for hours at the police station to get them back. Still others, like Ron, rail against the futility of the city's efforts to stop New Yorkers from reading, because of their virtual addiction to books.

In the end, the street booksellers stand their ground against the Mayor, and are able to continue selling with some adjustments to their way of life. However, the tone and tenor of the city has changed in the process, and the life of the sidewalk bookseller has become, overall, less 'free'' and appealing overall.

Book Ends

In the closing moments of BookWars, the narrator-filmmaker admits that after all the recent problems with the city, he has grown restless; he realizes that he wants to do something different, and wants to change his occupation at last. A single massive rainstorm is enough to convince him to give up his street bookselling activities.

He sells the last of his books off to his fellow street booksellers, and heads out West, on a cross-country road trip, with the audience in the passenger seat sharing the ride and his testimony.