The Death of a Bookstore

A patient line of patrons at Borders, Bridgewater, NJ. (Bergeron Image.)

It came only as a mild surprise when two e-mails hit my inbox this afternoon – both from Borders. 

The first announced that beginning today, Friday 22^nd, the company was “Going out of Business.  Everything now up to 40% off original price.”  The other was from CEO Mike Edwards bidding goodbye and explaining the necessity for what is now a total liquidation.

This didn’t catch me off guard, because back in March of this year, when on a family visit to the Washington, D.C. area, Priscille, Denise and I drove to the White Flint Regional Mall in Bethesda, Maryland for a walk and some shopping.

Inside the mall, the windows of the Borders Books & Music store were plastered with signs announcing the final closure of that store location. 

Borders management was then in the process of closing a bevy of stores in the hope that it would survive, and that a friendly suitor might come forward to take over a trimmed-down operation.  But there were not to be any white knights coming to the rescue.

It’s really no fun watching such an event take place:  The Borders store at the White Flint Mall was cleaned out.  There was little left – a few books here and there and a lot of empty space.  Even the store fixtures were up for sale and empty bookcases had already been cordoned off, awaiting pickup by their new owners.

This is the fate that is in the wind for our friendly bookstore across from the Bridgewater Commons Mall. 

The bare floor and stacked furniture tell the story, (Bergeron Image)

But you would never have known that from the huge crowd that filled Borders on this broiling mid-summer Friday afternoon.  Indeed, if you didn’t know what was happening, and if it were December, you would think that it was the height of the Christmas shopping rush.

Even the far end of the parking lot was filled to near-capacity, and the line of customers inside Borders wound its way backwards to the music section – a sight that I’ve never seen before.

There is more to this than merely the fact that a final sale was going on.  The two journals that I purchased were only 10% off the original price and hardly worth the drive and the long wait.  I also spied a woman about 15 people ahead of me reading on an Amazon Kindle, as she stood in line with her purchases! 

It portends, I think, that in spite of e-readers and the incursion of the Internet on readers’ time, the full impact of the wave of the future on people’s reading habits is not yet fully known, and there may always be – for some at least – a place on their calendar for the look, feel and comfort of a good paperback or hardbound book.

Thanks for reading, and good fortune to all of you who will be out of a job.

(Click on any image for an enhanced view.)