By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
LOWER MANHATTAN — Roslyn Bergenfeld doesn't just run a bookstore.
The owner of the nearly 60-year-old Civil Service Book Shop on Worth Street also offers informal career advice and encouragement to the dozens of people who stop in each day looking for government jobs.
Bergenfeld pairs future bus drivers and actuaries with the study guides they will need to pass the city's civil service exams, reassures those who are overwhelmed by the bureaucracy and firmly reminds everyone to study hard.
"It makes me feel good that I'm helping people," Bergenfeld said. "It's very satisfying when you help people get a job."
Bergenfeld, who demurs politely when asked her age, draws customers from all over the city to the only bookstore in New York that sells guides to civil service exams.
Although the thick practice-test books are also available online, many people put off buying them until right before the test and don't have time to wait for Amazon to deliver, so they wind up at Bergenfeld's shop. The guides explain everything from multiple-choice analogies like those found on the SAT, to complicated logic puzzles.
Steve Robinson, 26, a Brooklyn resident who wants to be a firefighter, stopped in on a recent afternoon to pick up a study book after he saw the store while riding past on his bike.
"It's competitive," he said of his career choice. "If you really want the job, you have to score as high as you can."
Robinson said he wanted to be a firefighter because of the hands-on nature of the work, along with the job security.
As he left the store, Bergenfeld called out to him from behind the counter: "Now you've got to study! Don't forget!"
Known to customers as "Mrs. B.," Bergenfeld, a Queens resident, started the shop with her husband Leonard in the early 1950s.
Leonard Bergenfeld originally wanted to open a toy store, but he decided there was a greater need to help the waves of soldiers returning from World War II, many of whom wanted to get government jobs.
Roslyn Bergenfeld started working in the store regularly when her husband got sick with Parkinson's about 20 years ago, and she took over when he died shortly thereafter.
Today she works with her daughter, Amy, trying to keep the store afloat in spite of the bad economy and dropping sales.
Bergenfeld recently put a "MOVING SALE" sign in the shop window, but it's just a precaution — she still has a lease for another couple years and hopes not to close or move anytime soon.
The shop mostly draws customers by word of mouth and has no website. They have an e-mail address but prefer to do business the old-fashioned way, by phone or in person.
In addition to the civil service books, the shop also sells classics, romance novels, travel guides and craft pamphlets. Bergenfeld's favorite genre — spy and detective tales — is also well represented.
But the biggest sellers are the study guides — recently, the test prep books for bus drivers and train operators have been the most popular, Bergenfeld said. The GED review books have also been selling as quickly as she can stock them.
While she encourages all of her customers to follow their dreams, Bergenfeld sometimes has to deflate the high hopes of a young man who wants to be a police officer but isn't yet a citizen, or a woman who wants to be a CIA agent but never went to college.
To everyone who is eligible, though, Bergenfeld's advice is simple: Study.
"I tell them they don't have to do it all at once," Bergenfeld said. "Just do a little bit every day. It's a matter of focus — putting down the cell phone, the television."
Although Bergenfeld did administrative government work before she got married, she has never felt a yearning since then to pick up one of the shop's books and study for a new career for herself. She expects to keep running the store for a long time.
"I don't know how to do anything else," she said.
The Civil Service Book Shop is located at 89 Worth St., 212-226-9506.
