Out. Back in 5 minutes

by Vladimir Lionter

If you search “Fred Wilson” on Google, chances are you won’t find the chess Fred Wilson first.

Instead, you’ll probably see Fred Wilson, the well-known New York investor and blogger, or Fred Wilson, whose work hangs in museums around the world.

Both are easier to find than the third Fred Wilson- an eighty-year-old chess master who quietly spends his afternoons on the seventh floor of an old Union Square office building, surrounded by thousands of books.

I found him by accident.

After typing “rare chess books Manhattan” into Google, I ended up at 41 Union Square West, Suite 718. I had passed that building many times before. I always noticed the marble lobby downstairs and the bust of Abraham Lincoln, but never imagined that upstairs, behind one office door, one of the most unusual chess collections in New York was still alive.

When the elevator opened on the seventh floor, I wasn’t even sure I was in the right place.

On the door of office 718, I noticed one of Fred Wilson’s business cards attached with old tape. Next to it was a small handwritten note, clearly reused many times over the years:

“Out. Back in 5 minutes.”

The paper looked old, slightly worn at the corners, the kind of note that had probably gone up on that hallway door hundreds of times before.

It somehow felt like the perfect introduction.

Inside, the room looks exactly the opposite of modern chess commerce.

One window facing Broadway. One wooden table. A few chairs. Shelves packed from floor to ceiling with tournament books, opening manuals, old magazines, clocks, vintage sets, and titles in English, German, Russian, and other languages.

This is not a store built for Instagram.

It is the life’s work of Fred Wilson.

Fred’s own website still lists his office hours as Monday through Saturday, 1 PM to 8 PM. When I visited, I was the only customer. Fred told me that some days he leaves for private lessons, but otherwise he spends long afternoons here—sometimes alone - waiting for the occasional collector, parent, student, or curious chess player who somehow discovers Suite 718.

That “somehow” is important.

I spent years around the Marshall Chess Club, the historic home of New York chess, yet nobody ever told me about Fred Wilson’s bookstore.

Fred himself laughed about it. He told me there had always been an informal understanding that people from Marshall would mention his shop to newcomers. Whether that still happens is another question.

The irony is hard to miss.

In 1967, Fred Wilson wasn’t hidden at all. In the Manhattan Open, at just twenty-one years old, he tied for first alongside GMs Nicolas Rossolimo, Pal Benko, and Arthur Bisguier. Rossolimo, of course, later gave his name to New York’s famous Chess Forum.

Today Fred lives a quieter life.

His website still lists hundreds of out-of-print books for sale, from Soviet tournament books to British chess history, many priced reasonably, sometimes surprisingly low. But like many independent booksellers, he now competes with online marketplaces where even some of his own books can occasionally be found for less.

Fred once wrote that he had two remaining goals: to stay in business for fifty consecutive years, and to become the oldest player ever to reach a 2300 rating.

That ambition hasn’t completely disappeared.

On his public Lichess profile (fredwilson), his numbers tell an interesting story:

USCF: 2193
Lichess Classical: 1926
Puzzle Rating: 2706

What does that mean?

At eighty, Fred Wilson may no longer play every position with the speed or stamina of his tournament years - but his tactical eye is still there. A puzzle rating above 2700 doesn’t happen by accident. It suggests that the combinations, patterns, and attacking instincts that once helped him beat masters in Manhattan are still very much alive.

In a city that constantly reinvents itself, Fred Wilson has done the opposite.

He stayed.

Upstairs.

Behind one small office door.

And sometimes, if he has stepped out for a moment, all that separates you from half a century of chess history is one old handwritten note:

“Out. Back in 5 minutes”