'Save Our Store,' Book Culture Begs Landlord, Wealthy Neighbors

UPPER WEST SIDE, MANHATTAN — The owner of a Columbus Avenue bookstore that was suddenly evicted this week is making a desperate plea both to his hard-to-reach landlord and the scores of wealthy residents that surround the beloved store to keep it open.

Book Culture owner Chris Doeblin said at a rally at the closed Columbus location Thursday that he's hanging his hopes equally on the customers who once helped him raise $600,000 to keep business afloat and that the landlord who seized his store Tuesday will change their minds.

The Columbus store, one of four Book Culture locations in Manhattan and Queens, was seized for owing more than $100,000 in back rent, even though Doeblin's argues that he and the landlord had an understanding that he could pay it off slowly and stay open. The landlord has refused to meet with him to discuss an agreement to reopen, he said.

But returning to his previous arrangement isn't the only source of hope for the "neighborhood gem" to reopen its doors, Doeblin said.

"There are so many people within a stone's throw of this building who could so easily invest in us and keep us going for years to come," he said Thursday.

(Anna Quinn/Patch).

Part of Doeblin's hope that local donors might step forward is based on the success of a "community lending program" he started over the summer when the Book Culture chain first started to run into trouble.

Back then, ballooning healthcare costs, increased minimum wage, high rent costs and the struggles of competing with online book-selling giants like Amazon had driven Book Culture $750,000 in the hole across all four stores, he said.

The community lending program, which asked to borrow money from customers, raised $600,000 by December, allowing Doeblin to start slowly paying off debts.

But with the sudden Columbus Avenue closure, which is costing him about $30,000 in sales losses a week, he now says he'll need about $1 million to fully bring Book Culture back on its feet.

An amount, he argues, is justified given the local jobs, millions in taxes and support to local artisans small bookstores like his provide the city — not to mention the significance of keeping beloved community space alive.

"It's just not the economics, we have a place so great that people will come out of the woodwork to support us in the cold," he said. "I'm not just fighting for me and my paycheck — this is something that's much bigger."

Book Culture staff and customers seem to agree the fight, however expensive, is worth fighting.

"This location in particular is, I like to think, a destination for the neighborhood," said Columbus bookseller Emily Neiss-Moe, whose been working out of the West 112th Street store since Tuesday. "We have wonderful community members who come in two, three times a week...it's almost like they're growing with us and we would like to keep growing with them, but it's hard."

(Anna Quinn/Patch).

One of those regular customers, Michelle Semrick, said she comes at least every week with her 2 and 4 year old. She was one of dozens of customers who wrote notes like "We need you Book Culture!" or "Our lovely neighborhood bookshop! Please bring it back!" on the store's windows Thursday.

To Semrick, Book Culture's $37,000-per-month rent is just one example of the high prices squeezing the Upper West Side's small businesses. A study in 2017 found 188 empty storefronts in the neighborhood, most of which had not been filled when Patch revisited them last year.

"This is a neighborhood gem," Semrick said. "The rents are getting so crazy that...you see this over and over and over again. It's getting out of control."

Book Culture's landlord did not return a request for comment.