Lin-Manuel Miranda opening an NYC bookstore

New York City (CNN) — If you can't get tickets to "Hamilton," there's now a very good Plan B.

The midtown store has long been a haven for the arts community -- it sells play and film scripts as well as musical scores, many of which are hard to find anywhere else, making the Drama Book Shop popular with the many actors who live and work in the Theater District and beyond.

One of the struggling performers who hung out here was Miranda himself, who staged an early version of his first Broadway musical, "In the Heights," in the Drama Book Shop's rehearsal space. He also frequented the establishment in his teens, reading books in the store when he couldn't afford to buy them.

"The store is a gem and a cultural institution in New York, and we want to make sure it's saved," Julie Menin, the media and entertainment commissioner for the mayor's office, told the New York Times.

Now Miranda, a MacArthur "Genius Grant" winner who is currently starring in the Hollywood movie "Mary Poppins Returns" alongside Emily Blunt, is one of a group of four people who have purchased the Drama Book Shop from Rozanne Seelen, widow of late owner Arthur Seelen.

The other three owners were also involved in the Broadway production of "Hamilton," including Jeffrey Seller, the show's lead producer.

Like other New York City institutions, the Drama Book Shop has had to cope with ever-increasing rents. The famous Carnegie Deli, also in midtown, closed in 2015, and FAO Schwarz, the famously over-the-top toy store where Tom Hanks danced on a giant piano, shuttered in 2015 only to get a new lease on life three years later.

The Drama Book Shop has been on West 40th Street since its original opening in 1917. The location will still close as planned at the end of January, but Miranda and his team will find a new location for it -- hopefully, still close enough to Times Square to serve its loyal clientele.

One book that mind end up on the shelves of a shiny new Drama Book Shop? Miranda's own go-get-em inspirational book "Gmorning, Gnight!," published in 2018.

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