Spoonbill & Sugartown (Photo courtesy of Ellen B. Wright)
This Saturday, get drunk on essays, novels and comics during the first-ever Brooklyn Bookstore Crawl. The event, taking place on Independent Bookstore Day, will feature no less than 26 stores, scattered between Greenpoint, Williamsburg, Bushwick, Fort Greene, Park Slope and a few other nabes.
(Photo: Daniel Maurer)
The St. Mark’s Bookshop has made it official: after nearly 40 years in business, the beloved East Village bookstore will close for good at the end of the week.
(Photo: Nicole Disser)
If things had gone as planned, the St. Mark’s Bookshop would’ve been closed for good by now. But the store has received a stay of execution and is still holding out, selling off its books at half-price while hoping for a miracle– or at least more investors to join the two who have already stepped up. Still, with new information surfacing about the plan for a St. Mark’s redux, it’s not looking good. Asked how long he thought the store had, owner Bob Contant guessed, “We might be here until the end of the month.”
Thin shelves spell bad news for St. Mark’s Bookshop (Photo via St. Mark’s Bookshop)
A lawyer for the struggling St. Mark’s Bookshop tells us “they’re probably not going to be around much longer, we’re talking days.” Since we last reported on the shop’s fight against eviction in the face of $62,000 in back rent, its problems have only mounted in the form of a $34,400 tax lien and a dispute with one of its biggest book distributors involving thousands more dollars in debt. Yesterday, the shop announced a “clearance sale” in a last-ditch effort to raise money before a forthcoming auction.
St Marks Bookshop 136 E. 3rd St
Interested in owning a piece of the new St. Mark’s Bookshop? Now might just be your chance. In another call-for-help email sent out earlier today, owner Bob Contant made a public appeal for support to help fund the “rebirth of the bookstore.”
(Photo: Jaime Cone)
On Huron Street just off the Greenpoint G-Train stop, Paige Lipari is meticulously planning a world where she hopes foodies will feel deliciously at home. At Archestratus Books, slated to open late summer/early fall, Lipari will house hundreds of carefully curated cookbooks and host small, ticketed dinner parties with a warm, intimate atmosphere.
(Photo: Nicole Disser)
Matt Winn, the owner of Molasses Books, describes his business as “just a small used book shop that happens to have a bar at the far wall,” which is maybe too modest a description for one of Brooklyn’s literary hubs. After two years of running the shop successfully, Winn says he’s finally in a position to do something he’s always wanted to do: start his own press.
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(Photo: Daniel Maurer)
Attention, bookstore loiterers. The beloved St Mark’s Bookshop has delayed its flight to East 3rd Street for at least another five days, according to a note sent out this morning.
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(Photo: Kate Beaudoin)
“Can I have some of your hair?”
Phillip English isn’t kidding. So, after hesitating a beat, I pluck a strand of hair from my head. He gingerly places the hair in a small baggie, seals it shut, and writes my name on it with a Sharpie.
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(Photo: Jenna Marotta)
“The store has been for rent for a year,” said Liddell, adding that from her count, the landlord has been through at least three realtors. “No one has rented the space. So we’re here until we’re not. We’re not going anywhere until something happens and that’s the truth.”
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