The Brattle Book Shop has been on West Street (at a few different locations) in Downtown Boston for more than 30 years. “Those rollers look really ugly, so we thought if we made it into a pencil it would look better.” said Ken Gloss, the shop’s longtime owner.

Every morning (weather permitting) Gloss’s employees wheel shelves of used books into the empty lot next to the store for customers to peruse. The lot, which today serves as the store’s outdoor wing, was once a site for the store itself, before the building burned to the ground in 1980.

Days like this one with a little drizzle force the store to adjust its setup. “The worst days are when it rains for 10 minutes, then the sun comes out and you have to uncover everything, and then it starts raining again,” Gloss said.

Gloss allowed an artist to design this mural under one condition: it needed to be literature-related. The artist then aggregated work from 18 other artists and put up the mural in black-and-white house paint so it would last.

Jack Hanson, one of Gloss’s 10 or so employees, has worked at Brattle for about a year and a half now.

(From left to right). A photo of the store that would eventually go up in flames and become the lot next door, an older photograph of the store’s current location, and an 8-year-old Ken Gloss with his father (the store’s previous owner) at one of the store’s previous locations.

On the ground floor of Brattle, customers can browse for titles in fiction, art, children’s, war, and more.

On the second floor of the store, you’ll find mostly non-fiction books, on subjects ranging from music to U.S. and world history.

If you head up these stairs, you’ll find the “Rare Book Room,” where Gloss houses his most valuable reads, some worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Also on the third floor is Gloss’ office. On weekdays, Gloss (pictured here) said you’ll find him up here at 6 a.m. getting as much done as he can before the shop opens up at 9 a.m.

“I tell you, it’d be a lot more work if we didn’t have an elevator,” said Gloss (pictured here).

Get off the elevator at the bottom floor and you’ll find yourself in the store’s basement. Gloss estimates there to be up to 25,000 books in the basement alone. Read the full story on Brattle Book Shop here.