From a New York Times obit by Alex Traub headlined “Ben McFall, ‘the Heart of the Strand,’ Is Dead at 73”:
Ben McFall, the longest-tenured bookseller in the history of the Strand, New York’s renowned bookstore, who for decades peered above his spectacles at a line of acolytes, tourists and young colleagues for whom he incarnated the store’s erudite but easygoing spirit, died at his home in Jersey City, N.J.
Jim Behrle, his partner, said the cause was a fall. He added that Mr. McFall suffered from pulmonary fibrosis, which had recently rendered him nearly bedridden.
