The Gotham Book Mart’s stock is going, going, gone. The contents of a legendary literary oasis that had attracted New York’s authors, editors, and readers since 1920 is to hit the auction block Tuesday. Five floors of books, photos, and literary memorabilia — along with more mundane office furniture and bookshelves — will be sold at the behest of the city marshal.

“It’s a sad ending to a very famous store,” James Cummins of James Cummins Bookseller, who once worked at the original Brentano’s, a block north of Gotham’s former location on 47th Street amid the Diamond District, said. In 2004, Gotham moved to 16 E. 46th St., the site of the former H.P. Kraus bookstore.

The auctioneer, Eliot Millman, said the sale was to satisfy a judgment for unpaid rent. “The monies owed are substantial,” he said, estimating them to be about $500,000 to $600,000. Calls to the Gotham Book Mart and its attorney were not returned by press time.

An eviction notice was served August 29, 2006; the store has been closed to the general public since then, according to a source in the book industry. In September, The New York Sun reported the store bore a sign that read “Wise Men and Women Gone Fishin’.”

John Doyle of Crawford Doyle Booksellers said the current level of retail rents made it difficult to sell out-of-print books at street level in Manhattan if one does not own the building. The owner of Skyline Books, Rob Warren, said that to be able to afford the rent on a Midtown storefront, “You’ve got to sell pianos.” He added the he was of the belief that people are reading less these days.

Among those who read much were poets W.H. Auden and Marianne Moore, two of the thousands of customers who found a haven at Gotham, which was founded in 1920 by Frances Steloff.

Steloff sold censored works by D.H. Lawrence and others, and writers interested in avant-garde literature “made a beeline for the store,” author Marvin Mondlin said. The store building has also been the center for meetings of the James Joyce Society over the years. A bibliographer and book appraiser, Andreas Brown, bought Gotham Book Mart in 1967.

A Sun columnist and owner of the Mysterious Bookshop, Otto Penzler, said he loved the ambience of the crowded shelves and tables jammed with books that were not always well organized. “That was the whole fun of it,” Mr. Penzler said.

Mr. Millman said that, while there were many bookstores, Gotham was “a place unto itself.”

The auction is scheduled to take place in lots at 11:30 a.m. at the store, Mr. Millman said; a $1,000 refundable deposit would be required to gain entrance to the sale.

Mr. Millman said he was unsure whether the famous “Wise Men Fish Here” sign would be part of the auction. After Tuesday, the scene will irrevocably look more like “wise men fished here.”