Dead and Gone

It was the Emerald City of bookstores and now it’s gone. B. Dalton Hollywood, formerly known as Pickwick’s, closed on May 20. I was walking along the squalid section of Hollywood Boulevard east of Highland on May 26 when I was shocked to see a sign in the front door window saying, “Going Out of Business.”

Unable to believe the sign, I peered inside. I saw inventory takers ticking off book titles on clipboard sheets and going about their detached business of clearing out a store that was once a landmark for the voracious readers of this city since its opening in 1938.

I first went into that store, when it was part of the Pickwick chain, as a boy of 13 in 1965 to order the “John Carter of Mars” series by Edgar Rice Burroughs. My order was taken by a gracious and chatty clerk named Sidney Seigel, who had an encyclopedic knowledge of paperbacks in print. I was, and still am, an insatiable reader of science fiction and Burroughs had taken hold of my fevered imagination, so my father took me on my first trip to Pickwick’s on what was then the glorious street of movie stars.

Talk about a teen-ager running head-on into the bookstore of his dreams! Just as spectacular was the third floor bargain-book attic, which was as large as the main floor. While the good times lasted, Pickwick, which became B. Dalton in October of 1968, was my retail bookstore of choice. (The Pickwick chain had been founded in 1931 by Louis Epstein with a store on 8th Street.) It had the biggest stock of science fiction, fantasy, mystery novels and other genre books in the city. But, during that time, the slow decline and fall of both the store and Hollywood Boulevard was taking place. Now, it’s the scene of homeless people and Metro Rail calamities.

Collectors, Marlow’s, Gilbert’s and others relocated or vanished. In 1989, I finally realized my dream and briefly worked in B. Dalton as a clerk but already the store was on the way downhill. The only other bookshops were Alan Siegel’s warehouse of a bookstore, Book City, Larry Edmonds Cinema and Theatre Bookshop and Dalton’s across-the-street rival, Crown. Crown closed shop three years ago.

The official reason B. Dalton Hollywood closed, according to Dalton publicist Ann Rucker, is that “Over the last four years, there haven’t been enough people living close enough and shopping in the area to enable us to keep the store open any longer.”

How do the people running the two remaining main drag bookstores feel about the closing? Phil Luboviski, co-owner of Larry Edmonds, says, “I was shocked but not too surprised. The traffic on Hollywood Boulevard has become almost nil. The earthquake started it all, I think, then the digging for the subway. We’re managing to stay alive, but just barely. The posters, the photos and the lobby cards keep us in business. If we had to be here on books alone, we’d be out of business.”

Although Book City’s manager, Teri Hannemann, is upbeat about her store’s survival, she concedes that her shop remains open for reasons other than walk-by sales. “For instance, we do business through mail orders, studio rentals, and phone orders. Nevertheless, we’ve been around for over 20 years, and I foresee us being around at least that much longer.”

Of course, as book stories die, others rise to replace them. Still, whatever the new business is that replaces B. Dalton Hollywood, and whatever they will be selling, the demise of a great bookstore speaks dark volumes about the condition of a neighborhood. Now there is just a wistful memory of a treasure island of books.