Somehow I thought a white knight would come riding in at the last possible minute.
I'm sure the owners of Borders hoped for the same thing. For a minute or two there, it looked like at least one company was interested in keeping Borders open, perhaps even upping the store's layout and content to Apple Store style appeal. But in the end, the creditors won out, opting to close out all the remaining stores with a fire sale mentality and a nod to the death of the book-selling industry, at least at the superstore level. Yeah, we still have Barnes & Noble, but for how long?
The store pictured here is the Mission Valley Borders, long my favorite in all of Southern California, and probably my favorite of every Borders I've ever stepped foot in. Me and this store go way back. I remember driving my beloved little deathtrap, a 1990 Honda CRX, across country in November of 1998, and nearing my final destination of downtown San Diego, coming west on Interstate 8 and passing the big red sign for this store. I immediately thought, "Well, at least there's a Borders here," and I'm pretty sure I went to that store that very night, my first in San Diego. And fell in love. It was big and well-stocked and conveniently located, just 5 miles from my place. I've gone there literally thousands of times since then. I've bought a ton of books there. And now, it's all but gone.
Borders eventually opened up a store downtown, just two blocks from my apartment, and while I visited there often, I always preferred to hop in the car and go to Mission Valley. The layout and selection of books was far superior there. It also always felt busier, more robust and successful, than its cute little downtown sister store. I cannot ever remember a time at the Mission Valley store where I didn't stand in line to check out. At times the downtown store seemed like a ghost town.
Even when the first round of Borders closings started, I thought this store would somehow make it. It was always busy and bustling. And when the news started getting worse and worse about the possibility of the company surviving, I held out hope that somehow, some way, this one lone store would beat the odds and continue to stay open.
Nope. Sorry. By October, it'll all be gone. Along with the other remaining one in Plaza Bonita, a mall south of San Diego, and that big, glorious one in Time Warner Center in NYC, which I always visit when I make it to the Big Apple. That marks the third of three favorite bookstores in that general vicinity of New York to die. First it was Coliseum Books, at the corner of Broadway and 57th St., a longtime favorite haunt of mine. Then it was the Barnes & Noble--one of the few B&Ns that I liked--at 61st St. and Broadway (directly across the street for many years from another favorite, Tower Records), which closed after the holidays this past year. And now Borders.
All soon-to-be gone. All soon-to-be missed.
I honestly don't know what the future of book-selling is in this country, or the world for that matter. Will it all be taken over by downloadable e-books? Will the mom-and-pop independent bookseller enjoy increased visibility and profits due to the demise of Borders? Will Amazon and Barnes & Noble take over the world, or at least that small piece of retail that appeals to those of us who can't live without books? I don't know the answer to any of these questions. I just know that my trips to the bookstore will never be the same. I'll keep buying books, but I'll always miss Borders.
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