Barnes & Noble has been shutting stores left and right for a while now, including quite a few Manhattan locations, but it's still sad to see the 18th Street flagship store close -- as it now has (see, for example, the Gothamist report -- or the official store page).
I lived nearby much of the 1970s through 2001 and though the store had its ups and downs (it went through some horrible phases too), much of the time it was a pretty damn good bookstore -- a first stop to check out any and all new publications when I was a teen, with deep fiction, philosophy, and science sections (at least up to about 1990 -- after that things fluctuated wildly), among others.
Of course, it was the B & N Sale Annex across Fifth Avenue that was my favored destination (and that was the bigger loss, closed down quite a few years back already)-- a decent selection of used books, remainders galore, half-price review copies, and the first cheap ARCs I ever bought.
So except for Strand (which also isn't quite the dusty wonder it once was) none of my teen and youthful book-haunts in the neighborhood are left any longer (the Union Square Barnes & Noble is a relatively recent invention).
I lived nearby much of the 1970s through 2001 and though the store had its ups and downs (it went through some horrible phases too), much of the time it was a pretty damn good bookstore -- a first stop to check out any and all new publications when I was a teen, with deep fiction, philosophy, and science sections (at least up to about 1990 -- after that things fluctuated wildly), among others.
Of course, it was the B & N Sale Annex across Fifth Avenue that was my favored destination (and that was the bigger loss, closed down quite a few years back already)-- a decent selection of used books, remainders galore, half-price review copies, and the first cheap ARCs I ever bought.
So except for Strand (which also isn't quite the dusty wonder it once was) none of my teen and youthful book-haunts in the neighborhood are left any longer (the Union Square Barnes & Noble is a relatively recent invention).