Slope Losing Another Small Bookstore
These are dark days for indie-minded Park Slope bibliophiles. 7th Ave. Books closed a few months ago, and just last week the Times reported that the Community Bookstore had fallen on hard times. Now comes word that another 7th Avenue bookseller is packing it in: Park Slope Books is consolidating operations with its sister store…
These are dark days for indie-minded Park Slope bibliophiles. 7th Ave. Books closed a few months ago, and just last week the Times reported that the Community Bookstore had fallen on hard times. Now comes word that another 7th Avenue bookseller is packing it in: Park Slope Books is consolidating operations with its sister store on Montague Street, Heights Books, and closing its Slope location this spring. Sad news for Slopers who like having options beyond Barnes & Noble. GMAP
Jeez its 2007 – who the hell cares if their are independent book stores…
Any book you want in the world (in print or out) is available with few clicks of the mouse, not to mention that finding places to discuss/discover books, literature and subjects are also offered at a myriad of places online and off.
You know there are virtually no typerwritter stores left either!
to 11:57
The funny thing about Park Slope is that there’s used books – GOOD used books – for free all over the place. People leave them out on their sidewalks to recycle among the neighbors.
Between that and stoop sales, the used market (for under $1) is covered.
I’ve bought a couple of books at the soon to be departed store, and I’m sad to see them go.
4:18, that sounds like a fishy statistic. Does it include bookstore that have gone out of business, or account that B&N etc may have plateaued, while independent stores are working from the budget figures that have gone down over the last decade due to the chains.
Does it factor B&N and Amazon as a single juggernaut?
yes, that must be why they are all going out of business.
I have worked in the book business for 25 years and, although it’s true that independent bookstores suffered greatly when the chains first expanded in the early 1990s, currently they are doing better business — at least when expressed as growth over previous years’ sales — than their big box rivals.
3:24 – please enlighten me where are all these national chains you refer? Not on 7th Ave and not on 5th thats for sure.
no actually, 3:24…you’d be hard pressed to find a neighborhood in gentrified brooklyn and certainly manhattan that has more mom and pops than park slope.
because of very small storefronts, park slope has a pretty vast array of small non-national chains, actually.
to not find a gap and only one starbucks in a neighborhood as large and wealthy as park slope is quite a feat.
@3:24,
What are you talking about? 3:13 is probably pretty close. How many national chain stores can you name in Park Slope?
3:13 has evidently never actually been to the Slope.