Meet the 'new kids on the block' who bought Detroit's Pages Bookshop

Yahoo

11-04-2025

It's the next chapter for a beloved bookstore in Detroit's Grandmont Rosedale neighborhood — and the new owners say the space will offer more than just books.
The Steen Foundation, a Detroit-based and youth-led organization focused on workforce development, purchased Pages Bookshop after former owner Susan Murphy decided to retire. She had planned to close its doors by the end of January after a decade-long run — unless someone bought the store. It turns out the Steen Foundation, led by 23-year-old Jeremiah Steen, came knocking.
The foundation partnered with the nonprofit think tank, Black Marriage Movement, to purchase the business, including the naming rights, logo and website. The new owners envision a community hub with books, art for sale and a podcast studio, and want to inspire young people to read, write and engage with books. The grand opening is later in April.
The new owners plan to venture outside the walls of the shop, too, with a free traveling book fair at Detroit schools. When customers buy certain books at the store, a portion of the proceeds will go toward a scholarship fund providing $1,000 to Detroit Public Schools Community District students. The fund is named after Murphy and Pages' former resident cat, Pip.
"We're the new kids on the block and so we want to ensure that we're maintaining the same quality that Susan was able to do for the last 10 years," Steen, executive director and founder of the Steen Foundation, told the Free Press. His organization, founded in 2018, provides grants to youth-based programs and initiatives.
They might be the new owners but they're not new to Detroit. Steen was born and raised on the east side of the city and now lives downtown. Jelani Stowers, vice president of narrative and research for the Steen Foundation, is a Grandmont Rosedale resident.
For Stowers, running Pages is personal. The 24-year-old visited the neighborhood bookstore with his family over the years and even hosted an author talk there. So, in January, after he learned the store was closing, he had to do something about it. He went to Steen and Murphy about buying the store. Now, Stowers is Pages' general manager and views the role as a huge responsibility.
"When I'm curating the books, I am servicing the community," he said, by choosing titles neighbors want but also ones that pique his interest.
He wants to live up to the expectations of the community that supported Pages for a decade and sell books customers want, cultivate a space where people feel like they belong and get youths to read, he said.
More: After a decade, Pages Bookshop in Detroit's historic Rosedale Park is closing
More: Downtown Detroit's Skillman library to reopen after renovations
The new Pages will have a community advisory board made up of Detroiters who will inform programming, book selections and the daily operations. The Steen Foundation bought the business with a grant from the Black Marriage Movement but Steen declined to publicly share the purchase price.
Steen isn't alone in purchasing a local bookstore. New businesses have cropped up over the past few years, in East English Village and southwest Detroit, often combining bookselling with events. Over on the west side, Detroiter Jerjuan Howard plans to open a bookshop, community space and coffee shop, Howard Family Bookstore, in June.
Pages Bookshop — one of Detroit's dozen or so indie bookstores — began as a pop-up in 2014 and opened its brick and mortar location the following year along Grand River Avenue. The Pages name and logo will remain the same, but customers may find more youth authors on the shelves.
"The goal is to ensure that the next generation has all the tools and resources necessary for them to achieve their aspirations and if we're producing young folks who are not literate, then they're not able to find decent jobs. ... Pages wants to be that beacon for literacy, for workforce development, and then for retaining and attracting talent in Detroit and Michigan," Steen said.
That's something that Michael Randall, executive director of the Grandmont Rosedale Development Corp., which owns the Pages building, found so thrilling.
"They're young, they're ambitious, they're full of energy and they have tremendous ideas about how to activate the space all around literacy and ... being a young organization led by young individuals is very exciting, knowing that they're going to take this thing to the next level," Randall said. His nonprofit is leasing Pages' building to the Steen Foundation, and had rented it out to the previous owner, too.
Pages has been a staple for Grandmont Rosedale communities and so the new ownership is welcome, he said.
"Bookstores are somewhat a thing of the past. They're a relic of a time, of a more simple time, where you can just go to a local bookstore and purchase a book and maybe sit and begin to read that book and connect with friends and whatnot," he said. "Bookstores being a hallmark of a community, and being a cornerstone of community, just really says a lot about the fabric of that community, and these are the type of businesses that we want to keep in Grandmont Rosedale."
Pages was known for its black-and-white resident cat. The question remains: Will the shop still have a furry friend lurking between its shelves? That's up in the air. But if Steen were to bring in an animal, it'd be his pet parakeet, Indigo.
Pages will hold a grand opening at 11 a.m. April 26 with community speakers, student performances and book giveaways. The store is collecting donations for its scholarship fund: givebutter.com/gQFSZG
Address and hours (after April 26): 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Wednesday to Saturday, 19560 Grand River Ave., Detroit.
Contact Nushrat Rahman: [e-mail]. Follow her on X: @NushratR.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Meet the 'new kids on the block' who bought Detroit's Pages Bookshop