McIntyre and Moore to close April 1

[ron_newman]

Not really news, as we've unfortunately been expecting it for a while, but this Somerville News article makes it official.

I sure hope they can find another smaller space to move to in our neighborhood.

A quote worth discussing here:

[Store manager Peter] Coyle has no problem with realtor Mike Gorin who he said has been “very reasonable” given the size and location of the store’s current space. Instead, he faults the changing culture of Davis Square, which has become more of an “entertainment destination” in recent years.

Here's an earlier post on the subject, and an earlier Somerville News article, both from last March.

Comments

[ifotismeni]

augh, it still breaks my heart to read this.

[edit] silver lining:
although the owners hope to relocate within walking distance to “try and remain as local as possible.”

this i can definitely live with!

[spatch]

I talked to one of the folks behind the counter a week or two back and she said they were looking at places around Teele and Ball and as far out as Union, and said "Don't worry, we won't be going anywhere like Saugus."

I felt reassured.



and funny, I consider books great entertainment, so Mc&Moore is an entertainment destination to me...

[farwing.livejournal.com]

Oh, crud. I really hope they can find another space nearby.

[jenskot.livejournal.com]

We could always use another burrito shop...

[dylanesque29.livejournal.com]

Can somebody please explain to me what's so great about McIntyre & Moore? It must be for the academic stuff, because I can hardly ever find anything good in there.

[makoshark.livejournal.com]

It's a particular type of academic stuff. Literary criticism, for example. I'm mostly into science and technology stuff and could rarely find anything either. I went to the Harvard Book Store or the Brattle Book Store for most of my shopping despite the fact that I lived up stairs.

That said, I love having a bookstore in the neighborhood and am sorry to see it leave.

[shana-lyons.livejournal.com]

I'm with you. I love the idea of having a used book store in the area, but M&M is just the wrong type one for me. I'd be a slave to a place that had a larger selection of trade paperbacks and recent hardcovers.

[tt02144.livejournal.com]

Davis Square is slowly but surely going the way of Harvard Square. Although it seems to be happening much more rapidly than it did in Harvard. It's too bad, sitting here watching the square implode.

[gildersleeve.livejournal.com]

I respectfully disagree. Davis and Harvard are two very different places and always have been. Harvard is a far larger densely zoned commercial center with tens of thousands of square feet of commercial/office space, three major hotels, several paid parking lots and garages, and a closer and easier access to Boston. Davis is zoned to much lower density, is home to less and much smaller commercial/office buildings, is hemmed in on all sides by permanent and small-structure residential streets with no direction to expand in, and is considerably more congested and farther from downtown.

Even with the modest buildings that have come in the last 20 years (Harvard Pilgrim, Somerset/Citizens Bank/One Davis Sq) and the proposal of one small hotel currently, Davis Square is far below Harvard in terms of overdevelopment and gentrification. There are far more independent stores in ratio to available commercial spaces in Davis than Harvard, and far greater variety in shops in Davis Square now than 20 years ago.

I think it is fair to say Davis is changing (as it always has, and to a more tremendous degree 20 years ago if you have lived here for more than 30 years and can remember 'the old days') but I really don't think it is becoming all the bad things people associate with Harvard Square today.

I will agree that is is sad to see a book store go away, but many have come and gone over the years... Zembla Books, Somerville Books & Records, and now M&M... but perhaps M&M will return in another form, proving that this is just one more continual readjustment, and not the sky falling.

[haptotrope.livejournal.com]

I think its not going "the way of Harvard" but it has gotten awefully "shiny"

So much so that I just don't go there to wander anymore.

[an-art-worker.livejournal.com]

Quote from the linked article

Store manager Peter Coyle attributes lagging sales in part to the death of the browsing culture that large businesses depend upon to stay afloat. “It used to be that people would look for a book for two or three years, buying other books in the meantime,” he said. “Now with the Internet people go online and find everything instantly.”

Ironic. It's less the death of the browsing culture than the substitution of one browsing culture (brick-based) for another (web-based). I wonder what will go in that space. Maybe a taco place... ;-)

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

I have found some great books there, but honestly, I hate going in. There's something about the place, the staff...I don't know what it is...that just makes me feel completely unwelcome.

Looking at Yelp reviews, I know it's not just me.

[bobobb.livejournal.com]

It is definitely not just you. I am definitely a "browser" and will spend hours wasting time in bookstores (the boston public library sale is my favorite time of year), but I really don't like going there. I saw a manager be very cruel and disrespectful to an employee on a few occassions as well as being hassled about my bag regularly (who steals books?). Maybe because I used to work retail that I am more sensitive to how workers are treated.

[agharta75.livejournal.com]

No, it's not you. Whenever I go in there (which is rarely) I get the same feeling - as if customers aren't wanted.

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

Hell yes. I moved out of Boston three years ago, but every time I went to McIntyre and Moore's, they were incredibly snarky about my literary taste. There were times I walked out of there feeling so insulted I wanted to burn the place to the ground.

On the bright side, they underpriced a lot of the stuff I liked to read, so if I could put up with the snobbery, I got great books cheap.

not surprised

[petula73.livejournal.com]

It makes sense, with retail rents being so high, I am surprised they lasted this long.

I am guessing that space is close to 5 figures a month.

Re: not surprised

[plushtown.livejournal.com]

Thanks for thinking about rent, it's really the most important thing, for us (I'm Michael McIntyre) and for people who can't buy books unless they can afford the money and the space for them. Your guess is good, was true 10 years ago for Davis and 15 years ago for 8 Mt. Auburn St., renting 2200 sf basement space from Harvard Real Estate that they didn't even try to rent to anyone else, so now it's offices and storage for them, not income, and of course off the tax rolls since they're not-for-profit. In a good month the rent there got close to $12,000 a month, in early 90's money. Then we stopped having such good months. What hurt us there was other used bookstores closing, especially Pangloss, and the end of residential rent control, forcing a lot of the customer base to leave, many selling books as they left so more outgo, less income, increasing debt. (And of course staff and owners' rents went up, along with real estate costs for all of eastern Mass.. Remember SPOA's claim that ending rent control in Cambridge, Boston and Brookline would lower other rents? Rents went up in Billerica.)

While there were other academic used bookstores there, by the way, we were furthest from the T, so people would go to Pangloss and Starr first and see we were significantly cheaper than Pangloss,(who priced more as one would in Chicago, NYC or DC, and less than Berkeley) and that Marc Starr was often 50 cents over half the new price and for us half is the top for in print stuff.
(Nowadays we're often at a quarter or a third of in print. We also deliberately price out of print books we like at less than lowest on internet, $35 say rather than being the lowest at $50 if we put it on internet, because we want it in the store. Of course this increases theft worries, and it takes some customer savvy about their subject to realize that for this title $35 is cheap.)

New space will be about $13,000 a month less than current in rent and utilities and has a Mass Ave Cambridge address, especially good for internet, and is almost as close to the T, but is a real basement with about 60% of the retail space we have now and 10% of the storage. On the good side, it has its bathroom on the same level so we can let people use it, as we always did in both stores in Harvard Square. That will be a huge relief to me.

I'm afraid we will still have to have bags left at the counter, excepting purses and sometimes laptops and instrument cases. I'm gratified that some people understand this, understand that we have to ask everybody or then we would indeed be picking someone out, and that the regulars volunteer. It is off-putting that when someone looking for something specific asks, we can only point to subject areas and have to ask for the bag, knowing that we price for someone not looking for the book rather than waiting for someone who only wants the one thing, the way Pangloss priced.

By the way, a fellow buying Asian art and related a few weeks ago said Strand's prices had gone up, and he liked ours. There are a lot of titles in lots of subjects that we price $6.50 or $7.50 now that would have been $15 15 years ago.

If someone wants to yell at me for grumpiness and frustration, my personal e-mail is michael@furrylogick.com.

Again, thanks for thinking about rent. I hope your situation isn't too onerous.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

The space was too big for the very niche nature of their business. The space they had had in Harvard Square was about half the size.

I think they'd probably do fine in a smaller space. A space that big needed to be more of a mainstream browsers' store, not a place where, if you asked if they had an autobiography or memoir section, the employee would sniff at you and say "That's not the kind of thing we stock."

memoirs/autobiographies/ biographies

[plushtown.livejournal.com]

Well, the store does have many memoirs, autobio's, bio's, but they're shelved in historical subject areas, especially "history of science", various periods/countries/regions, or the "authors" section near lit crit. We tried about 19 years ago in the 2nd store in Harvard Square(I'm Michael McIntyre, Dan moore is the other and at this point less grumpy one)to combine, sales of same fell, Wiley Coyote style. We try to shelve for those interested in a subject because odds in a physical store seem hundreds to one against having a particular title at a particular time, not surprising if you consider the more than 18,000,000 English titles existent vs. our pitiful 80,000, including other languages, so one sells almost entirely books not asked for but instead found, or perhaps the books find you. [I've thought since I browsed at 14 and confirmed when I clerked at 19 that if one asks for a single title, it hides. Only the serendipity seeking succeed,very frustrating for asker (once) and asked (decades), but good for browsing in your areas.] Often the best used bookdealers are introverts, would never consider any other retail,too painful, especially so when nearly never having what's verbally requested. I apologize for rudeness, but personally have found far more interesting (and re-saleable) titles in stores perceived as rude than fawning. People want service because we're taught to, but a service economy is a slave holders ideal.

[smileytypepers.livejournal.com]

Aw man!

nobody yet

[petula73.livejournal.com]

I have a few friends that have inquired about the space as recent as this past week and it is still available.

Someone in my office said they were having a hard time filling it because it is so expensive, and large.

Books and/or Bagels!

[sungold123.livejournal.com]

I would love to have a more mainstream bookstore; it's always struck me as odd that there isn't one in Davis. Not a Borders type, more like the one in Porter. Another thing that's sorely missing in the area: a bagel shop!! It would make my life complete.

Re: Books and/or Bagels!

[m-b-w.livejournal.com]

I agree about the "mainstream bookstore." While I rarely go into McIntyre & Moore and didn't buy much at Buck A Book, I really missed Somerville Books & Records when it closed many years ago. But, the Porter Square book store isn't too far . . .

[emilytheslayer.livejournal.com]

They're also considering a (smaller) location in Porter Sq, but I don't know how well they'd do with Porter Sq Books right there and all. My former roommate is the assistant manager, so I've been hearing about this for a while.

[ron_newman]

M&M is all used while Porter Square Books is all new, so I don't see that as a problem. Also, when bookstores cluster near each other, that helps all of them. Where might they go in Porter Square?

McIntyre and Moore to close April 1

[shortandhappier.livejournal.com]

I would love to see them move into Union Square. The Union Sq. area is getting more and more cool businesses and a book store would draw people into the square to discover the other retail uses, coffee shops and good food.