West Lafayette, Indiana: the college town that grew up around Purdue University. Come up the hill from the Wabash River into “the village,” as what passes for West Lafayette’s downtown is known, and along the left-hand side of the road you’ll see “Von’s” everywhere you look. Von’s Books, Von’s Copies, Von’s Video, Von’s Records, Von’s Cards, Von’s Posters. Across the street is Von’s Computers. This is certainly the most conspicuous, if not the most extensive, commercial empire in town. Visitors driving through can’t help but wonder: who is this Von?
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If John von Erdmannsdorff doesn’t quite have the hang of acting like a successful businessman, it may be because he never intended to be one. It all started with the bookstore, and he didn’t even intend that. He just wanted to be able to get a few books for himself and his wife without special-ordering them every time. In a town where the “bookstores” are really Purdue mug and sweatshirt shops that also stock course books at the beginning of each semester, this wasn’t easy.
Now he boasts of offering the largest paperback book selection in the United States, the largest card, poster, and calendar selections in Indiana, and the midwest’s largest selection of computer books–in addition to the videos, the records, the copying service, and all the rest. He did it without ever taking out a business loan, and he runs it all from a cramped space in back of the record store into which he’s crammed a desk, a couple of chairs with cracked seats, file cabinets, and piles of papers. The floor is covered with a scruffy brown rug that was cast off by tenants who moved out of the building. One of the chairs was left behind by an employee. “We kind of watch the pennies,” Von says, “and figure if we watch them maybe the rest will sort of gradually get there.”
Von’s other businesses get a little more competition. But here again, it’s not the competition that drives him to run them the way he does–it’s some idiosyncratic tendency of his to grow in all directions. Von’s Records, for instance, the first store in town to carry CDs, still stocks actual records–along with tie-dyed shirts and shorts, sunglasses, posters, and music T-shirts (“the largest selection in Indiana”). There are plenty of places in town to buy cards, but Von’s shop also features a long narrow side room filled to overflowing with stuffed animals and animal puppets (“the largest selection in the state!”).The video store also sells jewelry, calculators, stereo equipment, keychains, and those little troll dolls.
For information on Lafayette and West Lafayette, see the Visitor’s Guide in this issue.
