Bklyn Stories is sad about the imminent departure of Seventh Avenue Books. I like her blog and have become a daily reader.
The real downer is the imminent closure of 7th Avenue Books, near 2nd Street. As the clearing house for great literature in both used and new format, the store will be closing on August 31st.
As the Brooklyn Paper reports,
Tom Simon opened the bookstore on Seventh Avenue, between 7th and 8th
streets, six years ago . In 2002, he opened a children’s bookstore down
the street, between 2nd and 3rd streets. In 2005, after the landlord
raised the rent of the original storefront, Simon moved his entire
operation to the same block of 7th Avenue where his kids book store
sits. “I’ll tell you one thing,” said Simon, who guessed he had about
20,000 titles in stock. “If we do go out of business, we’ll offer the
best moving-out sale New York has seen in years.” Good luck to the
writer moving to Park Slope for creative inspiration.
Maybe we should really not shop at B&N instead of our last local bookstore, Community? And tell all our friends not to?
On Harry Potter night, there were hundreds lined up at B&N, but I waited only 20 mins at 7th Ave, where the line never exceeded 20-30.
I’m amazed at how near-sighted people can be who don’t patronize local stores and then bemoan their closing (not directed at above comments.) Otoh, I suspect most people don’t even care.
Funny, in my mind’s eye I envisioned 7th avenue books as the site of the bookstore with the rare book business upstairs featured in Paul Auster’s Brooklyn Follies….it just seemed to fit…sad to see the shop go. I guess you can never have too many bookstores (or wine shops)in a neighborhood. Someone better lay a Hogwarth-type spell on the remaining indy bookstores less they be morphed into dry cleaners or banks..
My passion for independent bookstores runs endless and deep.