Shakespeare & Co. Owner Says Economics Did Not Work Out for the Shuttering UWS Store

By Daniel Katzive

It was not so very long ago that the independent bookstores of the Upper West Side seemed to be on the verge of extinction. The opening in April 1993 of the Barnes & Noble superstore on Broadway and West 84th Street was a death knell for some, including the much-loved Eeyore’s Books for Children on Broadway at West 79th. Eeyore’s owner told the New York Times in August 1993 that the big store opening a few blocks away was the final straw, perhaps an inspiration for the 1998 Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan movie You’ve Got Mail.

More recently, the pendulum seemed to be swinging the other way. Barnes & Noble closed its big Lincoln Square store in January 2011, and a number of small booksellers have opened across the neighborhood in the intervening years. But, even if not extinct, independent bookstores do live a precarious existence, remaining very much on the endangered species list. That reality was brought home to the Upper Broadway neighborhood this week as signage appeared announcing the demise of Shakespeare & Co.’s store at West 105th Street and Broadway, just one year after opening.

Dane Neller, one of the owners of Shakespeare & Co., told West Side Rag in a telephone interview on Sunday that the company had tried hard to make things work at the location. “It was a really great landlord, a wonderful community. Love the neighborhood, love the customers,” he said, but “we just weren’t able to get to the sales level we needed to make the store sustainable.”

Neller said that the company’s East Side store on Lexington Avenue is also closing, though for different reasons, with the lease ending and the landlord there looking for higher rent. But the loss of revenue from that major store also meant that it was harder to carry the 105th Street location, Neller said. Competition from on-line booksellers makes it almost impossible for bookstores to raise prices, he said, “and so our price points are fixed and a lot of costs keep going up – labor cost and rent cost — so there comes a point where you just can’t make it work.”

Locals visiting the location or strolling past Sunday morning expressed dismay at the loss, though some also said they weren’t completely surprised, given these economic realities. Sydney Wyatt and Sara Tobias, who live nearby and visited the store Sunday, called Shakespeare their favorite bookstore, because “it’s cozy, small, it’s got a good selection always,” said Wyatt.

Some visitors thought that adding a cafe might have made a difference. “What survives here?” asked author Ron Fassler, who lives a few blocks from the store. “Coffee shops and nail salons,” he said, answering his own question, as lines of customers queuing for hot coffee snaked out the doors of establishments to the north and south.

The Shakespeare & Co. Lincoln Square location at 68th Street and Broadway is paired with a cafe and remains open and thriving, according to Neller. The company does not have plans to open new stores in the area at this time, but Neller says “there’s always opportunities, so we’re open and careful and we look at things as they come along.”

A long-time neighborhood resident passing by on Broadway on the way to get pizza was optimistic. “I know I personally am reading more. And turning off all sorts of things. Books are not going to go out of style,” she said.