Bye bye Bookstop
I went to visit a sort of shrine at lunch.
Bookstop on Alabama and Shepherd is closing on September 15. A brand spanking new Barnes and Noble was build in the River Oaks Shopping Center a mile or so up the road, and the old bookstore was rendered obsolete.
Bookstop was the first mega-bookstore that I ever remember going to. It was an independent chain out of Austin back in the early 80s, and every time we went to Austin, we'd stop for books there. The place, compared to any other bookstore I'd ever been to, was ENORMOUS, and the prices were ridiculously low. It was the first place that I remember where you could buy a discount card to save lots of money on purchases. My family of readers could easily afford to buy books there.
Around the same time, an old time movie theater that had been around since the thirties closed down. In my early childhood, our school used to take us to movies there. I remember seeing Oliver Twist and maybe Singin' in the Rain. But the theater was sort of out of date and expensive to maintain, so it closed its doors in 1983.
In 1984, Bookstop totally renovated the theater and turned it into a bookstore. It was (and still is) wonderful. The stage became the magazine rack. There are rows and rows of shelves where the seats were; fiction on the left as you're walking to the screen, non-fiction (and the kids section) on the right. The art deco statues still adorn the walls, and there are massive curtains to remind you that this was once a theater. They put the art and music and some of the technical books up in the balcony. There were two grand stairways on either side of the front foyer that led you up there.
I don't remember when I bought my first Bookstop card, but it was well before Barnes and Noble bought out Bookstop in the early 1990s. I think you paid 20 something bucks a year, and it'd give you a flat 20% off most books, and it usually paid for itself in the first few purchases of the year. I don't know if Barnes and Noble picked that up from Bookstop or if they were doing it independently. I think, though, that the Barnes and Noble people figured out that it was really stupid to mess with Bookstop too much. They didn't change the name. They added a few cosmetic changes, but nothing terribly intrusive. They honored the Bookstop cards and I think for awhile they issued cards from that store with the Bookstop logo and name. At some point they added a Starbucks cafe in the Balcony. It was open to midnight, and the staff was always ridiculously knowledgable about the store and about books. It was PACKED at Christmas-time, especially in the years when it was flanked by Cactus Records and Tapes, Whole Earth Provision Company, and Whole Foods. But even now, even up to the close, even with places like Amazon out there, I think it was pretty well packed.
When she was a senior in high-school, so this would be '96, maybe '97, my sister Olivia and I once organized a scavenger hunt based on unlucky things. My favorite item on the scavenger hunt was directing participants to go to Bookstop, find an edition of MacBeth, go to the magazine stage, and act out a scene. Four different groups went through at various points in the evening entertaining/annoying the patrons, and the bookstore made no indication at all that they minded this in the slightest.
I can't even begin to list the number of books I've bought there in the last two decades. I can't even start to think about how many times I've been there. At some point during law school I studied there, so I got to know the place really, really well. When PetSmart opened up next door a few years ago, even my dogs started going to Bookstop.
I went today to have a look at the sale. I was told that it'd be impossible to move everything to the new store. The books that can't be sent back to the publishers are 40% off and everything else is more or less the same. The balcony is closed, and there are piles and piles of books in the middle aisles with white stickers on them indicating that they're for quick sale. I asked one of the book people there if there was any rhyme or reason to the piles of books in the middle, and she said not really. It looked like there were more books on the shelves than not, but I'm sure that will change over the next few weeks.
I glanced at the books in the piles and decided that I didn't have the time or the energy to sort through them, looking for a gem. A lot of them were non-fiction, and I wasn't in the mood for that sort of book. The general fiction section seemed pretty much intact, as did the subgenres of mystery, romance and science fiction. I didn't wander to the other side of the aisle to see what was going on there. And there were lots of new books still coming in. Apparently the shipments still come, though they're not as frequent. A book that I was looking for, The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet, was out of stock, but the book people were happy to order a copy for me.
They told me that they outgrew the store. The people at the register promised me that the new store would be even better. Most of the staff from the current store plus some more will be moving over. I have a feeling that Barnes and Noble is itching to add DVD and CD sales to the mix. For over 20 of the 25 years that Bookstop has been there, Cactus was right next door, so it made little sense for the bookstore to venture into other media. I liked that. I liked that my bookstore was a bookstore. Certainly there were enough books there to keep my attention.
Weingarten Realty, the company that owns the theater and, conveniently, the shopping center that will house the new Barnes and Noble, says that they'll keep the theater as-is, but they haven't found a tenent yet. Speculation is that if anyone moves in, it won't be until 2010, because they'll have to do some building out and no one will want to be under construction during the holidays.
There's a grass-roots facebook movement to boycott the new Barnes and Noble in protest. The protest is in part because of the closing of Bookstop, but mainly because they tore down this goregous, historical art deco building to house the new Barnes and Noble and made absolutely no effort to have it architecturally match its environs. I'm not sure that'll work, mainly because of inertia. The bookstore will be nice and modern and have all the luxuries afforded brand-new bookstores. And it'll be convenient and close and easier than going to the Borders over by Whole Foods. So the people who swore that they'd never shop there will find themselves wandering across the street as they're waiting for a movie to start. Or they'll finish a meal at one of the restaurants in the River Oaks shopping center and stop to browse the bookstore. Or they'll be at Sur La Table Christmas shopping and figure they can pick up a cookbook to go with whatever. And people will forget about the protest.
But it won't be the same. Hopefully whatever establishment decides that 16,000 square feet in an old fashioned movie theater is where they want to do business turns out to be awesome.
It's rare for me to walk into Bookstop and not leave without a book or two or six. But I didn't have the heart to dedicate myself to true book browsing this afternoon. And I have some time.
But it's sad to see the place go.
Bookstop on Alabama and Shepherd is closing on September 15. A brand spanking new Barnes and Noble was build in the River Oaks Shopping Center a mile or so up the road, and the old bookstore was rendered obsolete.
Bookstop was the first mega-bookstore that I ever remember going to. It was an independent chain out of Austin back in the early 80s, and every time we went to Austin, we'd stop for books there. The place, compared to any other bookstore I'd ever been to, was ENORMOUS, and the prices were ridiculously low. It was the first place that I remember where you could buy a discount card to save lots of money on purchases. My family of readers could easily afford to buy books there.
Around the same time, an old time movie theater that had been around since the thirties closed down. In my early childhood, our school used to take us to movies there. I remember seeing Oliver Twist and maybe Singin' in the Rain. But the theater was sort of out of date and expensive to maintain, so it closed its doors in 1983.
In 1984, Bookstop totally renovated the theater and turned it into a bookstore. It was (and still is) wonderful. The stage became the magazine rack. There are rows and rows of shelves where the seats were; fiction on the left as you're walking to the screen, non-fiction (and the kids section) on the right. The art deco statues still adorn the walls, and there are massive curtains to remind you that this was once a theater. They put the art and music and some of the technical books up in the balcony. There were two grand stairways on either side of the front foyer that led you up there.
I don't remember when I bought my first Bookstop card, but it was well before Barnes and Noble bought out Bookstop in the early 1990s. I think you paid 20 something bucks a year, and it'd give you a flat 20% off most books, and it usually paid for itself in the first few purchases of the year. I don't know if Barnes and Noble picked that up from Bookstop or if they were doing it independently. I think, though, that the Barnes and Noble people figured out that it was really stupid to mess with Bookstop too much. They didn't change the name. They added a few cosmetic changes, but nothing terribly intrusive. They honored the Bookstop cards and I think for awhile they issued cards from that store with the Bookstop logo and name. At some point they added a Starbucks cafe in the Balcony. It was open to midnight, and the staff was always ridiculously knowledgable about the store and about books. It was PACKED at Christmas-time, especially in the years when it was flanked by Cactus Records and Tapes, Whole Earth Provision Company, and Whole Foods. But even now, even up to the close, even with places like Amazon out there, I think it was pretty well packed.
When she was a senior in high-school, so this would be '96, maybe '97, my sister Olivia and I once organized a scavenger hunt based on unlucky things. My favorite item on the scavenger hunt was directing participants to go to Bookstop, find an edition of MacBeth, go to the magazine stage, and act out a scene. Four different groups went through at various points in the evening entertaining/annoying the patrons, and the bookstore made no indication at all that they minded this in the slightest.
I can't even begin to list the number of books I've bought there in the last two decades. I can't even start to think about how many times I've been there. At some point during law school I studied there, so I got to know the place really, really well. When PetSmart opened up next door a few years ago, even my dogs started going to Bookstop.
I went today to have a look at the sale. I was told that it'd be impossible to move everything to the new store. The books that can't be sent back to the publishers are 40% off and everything else is more or less the same. The balcony is closed, and there are piles and piles of books in the middle aisles with white stickers on them indicating that they're for quick sale. I asked one of the book people there if there was any rhyme or reason to the piles of books in the middle, and she said not really. It looked like there were more books on the shelves than not, but I'm sure that will change over the next few weeks.
I glanced at the books in the piles and decided that I didn't have the time or the energy to sort through them, looking for a gem. A lot of them were non-fiction, and I wasn't in the mood for that sort of book. The general fiction section seemed pretty much intact, as did the subgenres of mystery, romance and science fiction. I didn't wander to the other side of the aisle to see what was going on there. And there were lots of new books still coming in. Apparently the shipments still come, though they're not as frequent. A book that I was looking for, The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet, was out of stock, but the book people were happy to order a copy for me.
They told me that they outgrew the store. The people at the register promised me that the new store would be even better. Most of the staff from the current store plus some more will be moving over. I have a feeling that Barnes and Noble is itching to add DVD and CD sales to the mix. For over 20 of the 25 years that Bookstop has been there, Cactus was right next door, so it made little sense for the bookstore to venture into other media. I liked that. I liked that my bookstore was a bookstore. Certainly there were enough books there to keep my attention.
Weingarten Realty, the company that owns the theater and, conveniently, the shopping center that will house the new Barnes and Noble, says that they'll keep the theater as-is, but they haven't found a tenent yet. Speculation is that if anyone moves in, it won't be until 2010, because they'll have to do some building out and no one will want to be under construction during the holidays.
There's a grass-roots facebook movement to boycott the new Barnes and Noble in protest. The protest is in part because of the closing of Bookstop, but mainly because they tore down this goregous, historical art deco building to house the new Barnes and Noble and made absolutely no effort to have it architecturally match its environs. I'm not sure that'll work, mainly because of inertia. The bookstore will be nice and modern and have all the luxuries afforded brand-new bookstores. And it'll be convenient and close and easier than going to the Borders over by Whole Foods. So the people who swore that they'd never shop there will find themselves wandering across the street as they're waiting for a movie to start. Or they'll finish a meal at one of the restaurants in the River Oaks shopping center and stop to browse the bookstore. Or they'll be at Sur La Table Christmas shopping and figure they can pick up a cookbook to go with whatever. And people will forget about the protest.
But it won't be the same. Hopefully whatever establishment decides that 16,000 square feet in an old fashioned movie theater is where they want to do business turns out to be awesome.
It's rare for me to walk into Bookstop and not leave without a book or two or six. But I didn't have the heart to dedicate myself to true book browsing this afternoon. And I have some time.
But it's sad to see the place go.