Big Box Bookstores Closing
I found out from a post on Facebook that a well known Barnes & Noble across from the Lincoln Center in New York is closing. It suddenly reminded me of the film, You Got Mail when Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan), owner of the Shop Around The Corner tried to fight off Fox Books, a large discount bookstore owned by Joe Fox (Tom Hanks).
I remember staring down Central Square in Cambridge, MA in the late 1990s, thinking how the independent stores were being pushed away and forced to close by national big box stores. To me, these indie stores, expensive at times were distinctive and unique compared to these nationalized chains. Despite these differences, the big box stores were booming, everyone wanted a Barnes & Noble and even a Walmart in their area.
Are these stores now dying? Perhaps you have noticed the “stripped” strip malls advertising rental space?
Circuit City has closed, Blockbuster is restructuring and of course Barnes and Nobles is reducing their stores. The cookie cutter stores that emerged in the 90′s might become a faint memory like the phonebooth. A sign of the times, results from a poor economy, overgrowth, and a love for at-your-fingertips technology.
Yet, there is a positive side about this shift, like the growth of independent online book sellers and the sustainability of traditional bookstores which have adapted to this digital age by connecting to the local community through different events and by creating digital offerings of their holdings.
So while some people are sadden by these closings, I am not. For one thing, a place like New York, has numerous places to go anyway, so why are they bemoaning? The closings also create the opportunity for something new to be born or an independent store to reemerge. So, yes, time to adjust to a new normal.
