Scenes from this Side of the Bridge: Losing the Bookstores

I found a table by the window at the on Lemoine Avenue. I pulled out my computer, fired off a few emails, and then stopped to lean back and take a sip of coffee. As I looked out the window, my eyes landed on the shell of the Borders building across the street. The windows are dark, and the building stands empty. The doors don’t swing open as people walk in and out with their cups of coffee and books. When I look at it now, I feel the way you do when you drive by a house you used to live in. You don’t just see the building; you see the experiences you had there.

When I lived in an apartment on Bridge Plaza North, at least once every couple weeks, I would take a walk to Borders. Sometimes I went there to browse and buy books. Sometimes I went to work on my laptop. Sometimes I was there just to meet up with friends. When I went there for pleasure, there was a routine to my visits. I would walk through the double doors at the front of the store, make a beeline toward the café to get coffee and chat with my friend, Nicole, who worked there, and then browse the bestsellers for a few minutes before selecting something to read and take home. I spent quite a bit of time and money at the now empty building.

It’s sad to see a place that you used to frequent, die out; especially a bookstore. These are places to discover new and old stories, authors, countries, music and history in an atmosphere that invites you to kick back and relax to soft music and the smell of coffee. Unfortunately, we have fewer and fewer of them around. They are no longer places that you can just drop by for a few minutes. Borders has gone under, the Barnes and Noble in Edgewater is now closing or closed (they were still trying to get rid of their inventory when I stopped by a couple of weeks ago), and there are fewer places to browse books in general. This, to me, seems like a huge loss. Like them or not, the giant bookstores were places to read, discover new books, meet friends, have a cup of coffee and relax.

I’m not quite sure what should or can be done about this. The articles I’ve seen on the topic seem to be pretty divided about whether this is a good or bad thing. Some of them seem to think that this is yet another sign that people are reading fewer books nowadays than ever before. Some of them seem to think that this will pave the way for independent book sellers to thrive again. Some say that printed books are becoming obsolete and that we need to embrace e-books (I disagree). I don’t quite know who to agree or disagree with. I just know that I have to plan a special trip to a book store when I want to browse books now. Personally, I need to have a book in my hand before I’ll want to buy it. I want to feel the book, flip through the pages and read part of it before I commit to spending money on it. You can’t do that on Amazon. Amazon also doesn’t provide chairs, a café or an atmosphere. It’s got its benefits, but it’s definitely not the same.

I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. Many of us used to love Borders. Now it’s gone. Where are we going to go now to browse and buy books? Where are we going to meet up with friends for coffee and to study and work? I thought about all of this as I took another sip of coffee.

As I finished my musings and turned my attention back to my computer, a woman asked if the chair next to me was taken. I motioned for her to take it and glanced around. Every chair in Starbucks was now filled with a body. It looked like I had the answer to at least one of my questions answered.