Please Don't Go Barnes & Noble @BNBuzz. The Bronx Needs A Bookstore.

10/25 Update:

Barnes & Noble executives said on Thursday that its store in Bay Plaza in Co-op City will remain open for two more years, reversing an earlier decision to close it after the year-end holidays. The announcement followed efforts by Ruben Diaz Jr., the Bronx borough president, to negotiate a compromise between the bookseller and its landlord, Prestige Properties & Development. [Winnie Hu, NYT]

When my friend shared this photo on Instagram (see below) and tagged me, my first reaction was sadness. Another bookstore I frequent is closing.

I work in midtown Manhattan. The building where I work used to have a Borders Books. I’d spend many a lunch hour walking up and down the aisles looking for books. It’s where most of Norrin’s books were purchased. A few blocks away, there was a multi-level Barnes & Nobel. And on my way home after work, another Borders Books on Park Avenue. Now they are all gone. There isn’t a bookstore nearby to spend my time or my money.

I miss it. I miss the bookstore.

But I took comfort knowing that I had the B&N in Bay Plaza. It’s the first bookstore I went to after Norrin was diagnosed with autism. It’s where I bought 3 copies of the April issue of Latina magazine, where my first print article was published. It’s where we like to spend Saturday afternoons, letting Norrin pick out his books.

I love bookstores. I love discovering new books and seeing old favorites. I have an iPad and a Kindle but I will always prefer holding a book. And buying books on line is just not the same.

According to Nielsen’s survey, ebooks constituted only 23 percent of unit sales for the first six months of the year, while hardcovers made up 25 percent and paperback 42 percent of sales…not only did overall print book sales, at 67 percent of the market, outpace ebook sales, both hardcovers and paperbacks individually outsold ebooks. [Claire Fallon, HuffPost Books]

If this is the case, why do bookstores keep closing?

Barnes & Nobel is the ONLY bookstore in The Bronx. Once its closes its doors, Bronxites will no longer have an option to buy books in their borough (outside of a Bronx college campus bookstore). If any borough needs a bookstore, it’s The Bronx. And our kids need access to books – and not books they can check out from a library, books they can have forever.

Whether you’re a Bronx resident or not, PLEASE sign the petition and share with your friends so that we can keep our 1 and only bookstore! To sign click – HERE.

And if Barnes & Noble must close its current location – I hope they reopen a smaller store within the new Bay Plaza shopping center. I hope they recognize that there is a need for one in our community.

Please Don’t Go Barnes & Noble @BNBuzz. The Bronx Needs A Bookstore.

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