SA - Downtown has lost its last bookstore
 

Just read this bit of unfortunate news in an article by David Hendricks on the mysanantonio business section dated 4 September 2008.

"In one way, it has been a sad summer for downtown San Antonio.

For the first time in at least 87 years, perhaps much longer, the central business district has no general-interest bookstore and no prospects for one.

The last bookstore, the Brentano's at Rivercenter mall, closed in June. Brentano's had occupied its advantageous river-level spot beneath the 1,000-room Marriott Rivercenter Hotel for 20 years, since the mall opened in 1988.

The Brentano's chain is part of Borders Group Inc.'s Waldenbooks, its mall-only division. Rivercenter mall decided to make the mall's river level all restaurants, so the mall asked Brentano's to move. “We offered them a space. They didn't want it,” said the mall's marketing director, Brenda Dean Hockaday.The action adds momentum to the direction Rivercenter Mall, and all of downtown, is headed. Retail gradually is leaving to make way for a River Walk-led theme park of restaurants and entertainment. Dillard's closing in August at the mall, to be replaced by a food-and-entertainment arcade, is another example.

The closest thing now to a downtown bookstore is Central Library's nonprofit The Cellar, which sells books withdrawn from its shelves. It is open only four hours a day, except for eight hours on Thursdays. No recent books are likely to be found there.

Downtown is hardly the only part of San Antonio lacking bookstores. The East and near-West sides go without. A group of South San Antonio High School students lobbied bookstore chains for years before Borders Group opened a Waldenbooks store at South Park Mall in 2004. It still operates there.

Books-A-Million Inc. introduced its first San Antonio store this summer at Alamo Ranch Marketplace, a new retail center at Loop 1604 and Texas 151. Otherwise, the remaining dozens of San Antonio bookstores are clustered on the North Side.

Brentano's was not a fabulous bookstore. It was small, but at least it offered a well-rounded selection. The new releases, fiction, history, children's, self-help and business book sections were decent-sized, and its newsstand was handy for Marriott hotel guests and downtown workers.

San Antonio once possessed truly great downtown bookstores. An antiquarian bookstore, Brock's, started in 1967 at 136 W. Commerce St. Book lovers and book dealers from across the country enjoyed browsing the haphazard piles of used books, searching for hard-to-find volumes.

The most magnificent, Rosengren's Books, opened in 1921. Florence Rosengren operated it for decades at the street level of the Crockett Hotel behind the Alamo before Camille Rosengren took over. It later moved to Losoya Street before closing.

Every book on Rosengren's shelves was handpicked for quality. Whether a new release or a classic, Rosengren's thoughtful collection and personal service was rare. If someone saw the great old movie “Rebecca” and wanted to read Daphne Du Maurier's 1938 novel, Rosengren's had a hardback copy of it.

Authors were drawn to Rosengren's. Over the decades, events there featured poet Robert Frost and novelist John Dos Passos. Texas writers John Graves and Larry McMurtry signed their books there.

Both Brock's and Rosengren's closed in 1987. That was a period when a downtown street construction project called Tri-Party choked downtown auto and pedestrian traffic. Society's values had changed, too.

“No one thinks twice at spending $50 for a meal here on the River Walk,” Camille Rosengren once observed. “But they won't spend $15 for a book that might change their lives.”

Without a bookstore downtown, no one has a choice anymore. Downtowns everywhere need places where the unexpected can be discovered, where new paths may be found and where imaginations can roam and renew. If the heart of a city doesn't have a bookstore, doesn't that drain the entire city of possibilities? "

dhendricks@express-news.net

Kind of a sour grapes article from someone who knows that better things will come from this. Hendricks knows business and knows the benefits...but the crusty old guys at Jim's would much rather read about how terrible our downtown is becoming than all of the great steps we're taking to improve it. So he writes to sell papers, which is sort of his job...

"I remember when you could get a pair of pants at Joske's for a quarter, a steak at the G&M for a dime, and a beer in the basement of the Alamo for a nickel - baaaaaahhhhh!!"

Wonder if we'll hear from this guy if, say, a Barnes and Noble moves in to the refurbished Rivercenter :rolleyes:

Like you say, kyle, some people are only happy if there's something to gripe about.

Does anyone have details on this?? I knew Dillards closed, but a Food and entertainment arcade? D&B's, Jillians? What are the rumors, or should we start them here?

He says there are no prospects (true) and that there isn't a general purpose bookstore downtown (true) -- I don't see how this is sour grapes.

And replacing one bookstore with one bookstore does not mean improvement. I've been in plenty of cities where you can't walk more than a block without stumbling onto a bookstore.

But hey-- this is San Antonio! It doesn't take much education to say "And on your right is the alamo..."

Apparently, the "arcade" portion contains an upmarket bowling alley called Lucky Strike.

you may be right that "sour grapes" is the wrong terminology.

still, when offered another spot in the mall, brentano's said "no thank you" - so their business must not exactly be booming. and if it can't be supported, then i won't cry as it goes. it doesn't make the city any better to lose it, but i have no doubt that as DT grows its residential base (and therefore improves its retail demographics), a new bookstore will move in.

vistana will soon be moving in 250 units-worth of folks...and another 147 are one day going to be occupied at Alteza (GH). the bookstores will return. just need the urban "rooftops" to support them.

I've seen Lucky Strikes in two other locations that could be described as "upper-middle class", one at the Denver Pavilions and the other at Kansas City's Power and Light District. Both of those cities have downtown populations that are large compared to SA's and growing. I'm sure the number of condos coming on line in downtown SA at least in a large part drove their decision to locate there (although it would be interesting to see the numbers on bowling tourists). If this is the case, it shouldn't be too long before we see another bookstore or two in downtown.

In the short term, the absence a bookstore is a bad thing, but this just seems to be cyclical to me.

I'm not sure about cyclical. The article also mentions the lack of bookstores in San Antonio in general, and that the last 2 downtown stores closed during the tri-party construction in the 80's and have yet to be replaced

I don't think San Antonio in general lacks bookstores, I do think they're just concentrated in north of 90.

For instance, and these cities are random, in terms of big chain bookstores like Barnes and Noble, Orlando has 7, Portland has 6, Cleveland has 4. Kansas City has 4, San Antonio has 7.

As for Borders:

Orlando - 5 Borders 5 Waldenbooks

Portland - 5 Borders 0 Waldenbooks

Cleveland - 5 borders 2 Waldenbooks

Kansas - 5 Borders 2 Waldenbooks

San Antonio - 3 Borders (one on the way) 3 Waldenbooks

Yes, I know this isn't comparing regional book chains or small mom and pop stores but that a little harder to find. :haha:

I do think as new retail centers open up on the southeast side and the east side and the continuation of growth downtown, that those areas will see the addition of the Borders or Books-A-Million or a B. Dalton.

Portland has Powell's City of Books, so all this comparing does us no good :(

I think I'm actually spoiled thanks to Powell's! I even went to Powell's Technical but probably won't now that Fup died :(

I haven't been to a bookstore in almost a year - Amazon Kindle. :tup:

Inspired by Seattle's love of reading!

I'd get one, but I kinda sorta like milling about in the Seattle Central Library. I have 3 overdue books, though. Sigh.

Family members know to keep me out of bookstores. I'd basically take up residency in them if they wouldn't throw me out. I also have at least one bookstore and library within a quarter mile of our house. :banana:

There are still good book stores near downtown on Broadway, Cheever Books, Half Price Books, and the Antiquarian Bookmart (Ive never been there, so im not really sure about it)

You'd love the Pacific Northwest, then. The main things people do here is go out hiking in the rain and read. Sometimes they go hiking and then read! Cougar Mountain even has people propped up on trails reading from time to time.

And there are tons of libraries, too. 2 within a quarter mile of my apartment.

City of readers.

I can't remember the name of it, but there is a book store downtown between Main Plaza and the River that closed down during construction of Main Plaza. For all I know it is still supposed to reopen.

There is a bookstore at Main Plaza.

So a book store plans to close down because of redevlopment at a mall, and, San Antonio now has a inferior downtown? We do happen to have a great central library. There is also projects happening all over downtown. River North will change downtown as we no it, and pretty much give San Antonio one of the better downtowns.
Would you rather we lose one of the many hopsitals, UTSA, or one of the many magnificant cutural venues, instead of a small bookstore?

Paul, your avatar, where'd you get that pic???!!!!

Because literacy has nothing to do with the success of a city