Media attention helped extend the presence of Barnes & Noble in the Bronx as the borough’s last remaining bookstore, but now the company says they will close one of their three Queens locations at the end of the year. BN indicated they were unable to negotiate a new lease for their Fresh Meadows store, near St. John’s University. The end of the year often brings a number of store closing announcements, as leases expire (and after the brisk holiday selling season is over). It’s still early in the season for such disclosures, though the company has already acknowledged additional year-end […]
Bookstores
Posman Books to Close Grand Central Location, and More
Posman Books will close its Grand Central Station location after “15 wonderful years” by the end of the year, Shelf Awareness reports. The store has to leave its 5,000-square foot space as part of the Terminal’s plan “to upgrade and improve pedestrian circulation” and as part of the larger One Vanderbilt Project, a proposed 65-story office building whose owner has offered to pay for $210 million in Grand Central pedestrian passageway and subway platform improvements. Posman’s Robert Fader explained to the publication: “We have been in discussions with Grand Central for several years, but they have been unable to find […]
People, Etc.
Pearson chief financial officer for the past eight years Robin Freestone has told the board “he would like to step down…before the end of 2015 to explore a range of other interests.” A search is underway for a replacement and Freestone will remain in the job until a successor is named. At Penguin Random House, Christopher Dufault has been promoted to the newly created position of vp, director, Penguin hardcover sales development. At Macmillan Children’s, Molly Brouillette has been promoted to associate director, publicity while Mary Van Akin moves up to senior publicist. At HarperCollins Children’s, Christopher Hernandez and Stephanie Stein […]
Bookstore News, Good and Bad
The forthcoming issue of Vanity Fair features Bruce Handy chronicling the life of the late owner of Paris’s Shakespeare and Company bookstore, “the eccentric, irascible, and visionary George Whitman,” and looking at “Shakespeare’s greatest asset in the age of Amazon: Whitman’s daughter, Sylvia.” Downtown Greenville, SC will get a downtown bookstore, in a planned renovation of the Greenville County Family Court building. To be called M. Judson, already two years in the making with months more to go, the store is being created by local author Ashley Warlick, publisher of Edible Upcountry magazine Samantha Wallace, and owner of Booksmith in […]
Amazon Reported to Prepare Retail(ish) Space In New York By Empire State Building
The WSJ reports that Amazon is opening some kind of physical, operating presence — will it include or operate as a store? — on 34th in Midtown Manhattan, across from the Empire State Building. According to “people familiar with the plans,” the space “would function as a mini-warehouse, with limited inventory for same-day delivery within New York, product returns and exchanges, and pickups of online orders.” They add, less definitively, that “Amazon also may consider using the space to showcase inventory, particularly its devices like the Kindle e-readers, Fire smartphone or Fire TV set-top box.” The store is deemed an experiment. […]
Bookselling: New Contract for Book Culture Employees; RiverRun Closes Maine Location; and More
Employees at Book Culture in Morningside Heights signed a three-year contract Wednesday night after a protracted summer-long fight over attempts to unionize that led to the dismissal of several employees, subsequently reversed. The NY Daily News reports the new deal includes higher wages, fixed raises and affordable health care. “Now everyone is super happy,” Cameron Addicott, one of five employees fired for casting pro-unionization votes (after which four were rehired) told the paper. “We’re able to get back to what we do best. There isn’t any worry in the work place. There’s that knowledge that you have that support.” The […]