An article in yesterday’s Times about Columbia Street illuminated me on the status of Freebird Books, a bookstore I’ve heard a lot of great things about but have never been to.

Freebird has been an anchor. But change is coming there, too. Ms. London, the former co-owner, said she and her partner had recently agreed to sell the property to a longtime neighbor and customer. She said the decision to sell the business was not a financial one, but rather a practical one. Ms. London that she needed to spend more time with her 3 ½-year-old son, and that her partner had decided to move to Florida.

She added that “psychological barriers” created by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway kept people from discovering Columbia Street as a destination.

“People don’t think to come to down to Columbia Street to stroll,” she said. “The construction going on is a deterrent.” Foot traffic picks up in the evenings, she said. A couple of years after opening, she said, her bookstore had become one of the most popular places on Columbia Street, a shop where people browse in peace with no pressure.

Ms. London also works at the Pit Stop, a French bistro a couple of doors down, and she hasn’t given up.

“There is something magical that happens around here,” she said. “Everyone struggles together.”

Peter Miller, an associate director of publicity at the publishing house Bloomsbury/USA, is Freebird’s new owner. He wondered if the neighborhood had to become hot at all to succeed.