Life In The City
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Closing Century City's BORDERS
I was a regular customer of the Brentano's store at Century City Mall from 1989 until its closure in 2006. During most of its existence, that store was located right next to the old AMC 14 theatres on the northwest corner of the mall. The combination was a business owner's dream, with many movie-goers buying their tickets at the cinema right outside the bookstore's entrance, then turning around and entering Brentano's to browse and often actually purchase books while waiting for their shows to start. While I never truly accepted the rationale used for replacing it with the new Borders store (how did the new store "better serve the needs of the community"?) I eventually learned to accept the new location and was glad that it provided employment to at least three of the former Brentano's employees. Unfortunately, the new store didn't have the cozy feel of the old one, and not having it right next door to an AMC theatre (it is considerably more walking distance from the new AMC 15 on the southwest corner than its predecessor was from the AMC 14) had the effect of, in my opinion, significantly cutting down traffic to the shop. Without the steady stream of customers that Brentano's had as a result of its unique location in the mall, the new Borders store could not generate the revenue needed to survive. I think this proves the validity of the old saying, If It Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It!
Labels: bookstores
4 Comments:
Love this article!
I worked at this borders from 2007- 2010. I know the Brentanos employees you refer to. I couldn't agree with you more, Borders didn't really serve that community, thou SooYoung Kim who was the general manager at Brentanos as well as borders for all but the last year tried to make it so.
I always knew that when Borders filed for bankruptcy century city would be among the first to go. Alot of good, dedicated people lost their jobs, not to mention being put through the he'll of closing out a store. It's nice to see someone writing about this. Thank you
You're welcome, Brian! While I have enjoyed bookstores over the years, Brentano's was my favorite. And though Borders was not exactly the same, I am sad to see it go, as the era of having a bookstore at Century City Mall has come to an end.
Brentano's Century City was my favorite bookstore in the world. A movie & Brentano's was often a date night for me & my boyfriend. We'd waddle into the movie with our 1/2 dozen book purchases & try not to make too much noise with our bags, delighted to see many other moviegoers had done the same. We always loved to see Brentano's so packed with so many people still enjoying a good book. It broke my heart when it closed.
I stood in line for about an hour to meet Clive Barker in 2001 and you couldn't meet a better, more professional group of staff in Brentanos in Century City. I am sad to hear that the store is now closed.
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