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Read the press release here.

Left Bank Books Closed on Sunday

By Danielle Tcholakian | March 11, 2016 1:41pm | Updated on March 14, 2016 8:53am
 This weekend is your last chance to shop at Left Bank Books.
This weekend is your last chance to shop at Left Bank Books.
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Instagram/@leftbankbooksny

WEST VILLAGE — Left Bank Books closed for good on Sunday after nearly 24 years in the Village.

Margarita Danielian, a friend of the owners' who was "helping the owners out" on Friday answering phones and tending to customers, said operating a brick-and-mortar used and rare bookstore just became untenable.

"The economy is such that a business like this cannot be supported given the expenses that are incurred," she said.

Danielian wanted people to know this weekend is "their last chance to experience a vintage West Village bookstore."

The rare and used book purveyor, which moved from a space around the corner on West 4th Street to the storefront at 17 8th Ave. in 2010, was selling all of its tomes at a 40 percent discount through its last day on March 13.

The store's move to 8th Avenue was prompted after its former landlord wouldn't renew the lease on West 4th Street in 2009. At the time, the store’s owner speculated even if the landlord had made an offer, “it would have been for far more money than we could afford.”

A recent Instagram on the store's account showed a packed shop, full of "all our fans."

 

 

A previous Instagram post announcing the closure thanked the bookstore's devotees.

"We couldn't have lasted as long as we did without the patronage and support of our many loyal customers," the post read. "We're grateful to you and will miss you and the neighborhood."

The post was signed, "Xoxo The Freaks of LBB."

 


Left Bank is the third neighborhood mainstay to close on that block in less than a year.

A New Yorker article decrying the "blight" on 8th Avenue in the Village, caused by increasingly high retail rents, noted the House of Cards & Curiosities closing after 20 years, just a few doors down from Left Bank.

And Chocolate Bar, a favorite coffee and ice cream shop of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman's, shuttered around the same time after 13 years on the block.