TOMORROW, Sat. Jan 6, is the last day of COLISEUM BOOKS in NYC

NYPL bookstore links, some here some gone:
https://www.nypl.org/weblinks/2160

Wonder how old that is. Labyrinth Books is listed but now in NYC it is now Book Culture, 536 W 112th St. (Labyrinth now Princeton only, Book Culture has a few other new locations)
http://www.harlemonestop.com/organization/593/book-culture112th-street-bookshop

Ah, owner previously worked at Papyrus Books (not the stationery store chain) at 114th and Broadway, which later became Morningside Bookshop and closed in 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/nyregion/30metjournal.html
Some articles about Papyrus can be found by googling Papyus Staskiewicz, the latter being the owner's last name. Loved going to that place on a Saturday after getting out of SHP in Pupin Hall at Columbia.

Relatively recent roundup:
http://nymag.com/arts/books/features/67391/

Way too rich for my blood but
Argosy Books, 116 E 59th Street
is still a going concern.

In addition to missing the Barnes & Noble flagship
http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2014/01/barnes-noble-flagship.html
I also miss the Barnes & Noble Sales Annex, which was across the street and was definitely still there in the early 80s. Had tons of used and genre books at a deep discount, I believe- a commenter in that link talks about the ".88 bargain basement"

A friend of mine lost his virginity getting picked up by a much older woman in the Upper East Side B&N when he was a teenager.

Sales Annex mentioned in this old Columbia university roundup- "Bibliophilia" etc-
http://spectatorarchive.library.columbia.edu/cgi-bin/columbia?a=d&d=cs19780216-01.1.8&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN------#
Was on 17th and Fifth, must still have been there in 1994
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/12/nyregion/new-yorkers-co-359351.html

Columbia Spectator also mentions a Brentano's at 20 University Place, which I remember, and a chain called Marlboro Books, which I have no recollection of.

Ah, I had forgotten The Madison Avenue Bookshop was responsible for this:
http://www.nytimes.com/1984/04/09/books/5-year-old-southern-novel-enjoys-a-sales-boom.html

Another bookstore on Madison at 81st, Burlington, that I am afraid I don't really recall
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/16/nyregion/neighborhood-report-manhattan-up-close-more-bookstore-casualties.html
Article also mentions Endicott, as does
http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2014/09/02/an-independent-bookstore-rises-on-the-upper-west-side/

Untitled (Fine Art In Print), 159 Prince Street, gone since 2006
http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2009/03/untitled-dogs.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/22/style/home%20and%20garden/currents-postcards-wish-you-were-here-customers-after.html

Spring Street Books, 169 Spring Street
http://www.sohobooks.net/gallery/

Art Bookstore on 57th was Hacker Art Books, 45 W 57th Street
apparently aka Strand-Hacker or Hacker-Strand
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/24/nyregion/s-hacker-83-book-dealer-in-new-york.html

Pageant Print Shop still exists in some form
http://leshistorymonth.org/2015/03/31/pageant-print-shop/
http://nymag.com/listings/stores/pageant-print-shop/
http://lostnewyorkcity.blogspot.com/2007/02/pageant-prints-livesand-so-does.html
but rare books part of business now on-line only

German Book Center located in Mountain Dale, not Westchester. No further zooming in on NYC Columbus Circle area location.

Okay, 1841 Broadway (W 60th)

Seymour Hacker obit quite interesting.

A little more about Hacker
http://www.nysun.com/arts/still-life-in-the-art-book-trade/885/
In which article

Ursus Books, 699 Madison Avenue

is mentioned still in business

Hacker, at an earlier location:
http://www.gettyimages.com/pictures/seymour-hacker-in-his-shop-381-bleecker-street-greenwich-news-photo-474378939

Shakespeare & Co. One left? At 939 Lexington Avenue (69th)
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/13/nyregion/a-shakespeare-co-to-exit-the-scene.html
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/63728-is-shakespeare-co-in-danger-of-extinction.html
http://vanishingnewyork.blogspot.com/2014/05/shakespeare-co.html

Still there
Three Lives & Company 154 W 10th

http://www.threelives.com/

Used to have the devil of a time finding it because I could never remember what intersection it was at and it is located in an area where a lot of slanted streets converge. I see now on the map there there is sort of a rhombus bounded by 7th Ave, Greenwich Ave, 6th Ave and W 4th Street, with Christopher as a diagonal, W10th, Charles and Perry running parallel to it in the upper triangle and Washington an altitude of the lower triangle with 6th Avenue as base and Waverly running parallel to Washington.

Ah, but Waverly has two sections that intersect, one including a "spur." The other part of Waverly runs parallel to an altitude in the upper triangle with Christopher as base which doesn't correspond to any street.

(This is what happens when you grow up in a city and feel like looking at a map is for outsiders)

Three Lives is endangered.

Ugh.

Walked in there the other day. Couldn't get myself to bring this up with the staff.

But really came to post, that I finally figured out, it came to me in the middle of the night a few days ago, the name of the bookstore/cardshop near where I grew up in Queens, where I spent a lot of time when I was coming up. I had been thinking about it for months, had no way of finding it out, I was even going to contact Will Hermes, who I believe lived near there as well, and ask if he remembered, even though I don't know him.

Finally the name came to me

in the middle of that night at 3 or 4 AM. An interior voice said to me the name of this store, which was the name of a chain that now seems to have exactly one outlet. And the name of this chain was:
Womrath or Womrath's.

Ah, I see through google books that there is a nice book with photos of this bookstore and lots of other Art Deco buildings built around the same era called Fresh Meadows, by Fred Cantor and ‎Debra L. Davidson. Only some of them were Art Deco by the time I was coming up.

Art Bookstore on 57th was Hacker Art Books, 45 W 57th Street

I went there a few times. Strand bought their stock, if memory serves. But Hacker had some kind of afterlife at 248 Flushing Ave in Brooklyn. I wanted to solve this mystery and walked by once, but there was no way to get into the building. The business, whatever it was, is gone now.

Before my time, but some very interesting stuff here about the Eighth Street Bookshop
http://realitystudio.org/bibliographic-bunker/positively-eighth-street/

And exactly ten years later give or take a week, will be the last day of BookCourt.

http://gothamist.com/2016/12/06/cobble_hill_bookcourt_rip.php

http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&VBID=24UAYW5NFEORE

https://untappedcities.com/2015/08/26/4th-avenue-the-history-of-nycs-book-row/

Here is a list of NYC bookstores circa 1993
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.arts.sf.written/HZvsc7mdkOU

Which mentions the German bookstore off Columbus Circle I mentioned upthread:

Mary S. Rosenberg Bookstore (1841 Broadway, really on 60th a couple of
doors west of Broadway, 212-307-7733)
Large collection of German books, most standard paperback series,
and many used and new hardcover titles in literature, philosophy.
Books stacked all over, but navigable once you figure out the basic
layout.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_S._Rosenberg
https://www.fuerthwiki.de/wiki/index.php/Mary_Rosenberg

Never heard of this place until just came across:
https://www.haaretz.com/life/.premium-the-meshuggener-who-keeps-the-last-n-y-c-yiddish-bookstore-alive-1.5463462

Uh oh Book Culture

RIP the one in the old Endicott location

RONG ROOM

Looks like the Strand is going to move into that Columbus and 82nd sure that once was Endicott & Co. and then a Book Culture.

Also feel kind of weird seeing some American Greetings closed where I used to buy books decades ago.

i've been doing my shopping at unnameable books in prospect heights, they're really knowledgeable and friendly and have a great used poetry and fiction section.

Wow, I'm really surprised to see that Coliseum Books in west midtown was still going in 1998.

...Wait, they were open until 2007 in a 2nd location?? I only remember the one by Columbus Circle.

Did you live in NYC?

I've lived in NYC most of my life, since the late 1980s. I actually worked right next to Bryant park when this thread started and didn't know there was a Coliseum Books there.

Man I wish i had access to a bookstore like this in 2020, i remember some friends used to shit talk this place back in the 80s 90s for being too anonymous/generic but wtf it had the selection, i don't care about atmosphere

It contained multitudes.

Bank Street Bookstore on the Upper West Side.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/83822-coronavirus-shutters-longtime-nyc-children-s-bookstore.html