Vanishing New York Backup

VANISHING It's yet another nail in the coffin for the very dead St. Mark's Place. After 36 years, St. Mark's Comics will be closing at the end of February. They announced the news today on Twitter and explained why on their Facebook page: "There are lots of obstacles to running a retail storefront in NYC; too many of them at once to fight, and after 36 pretty intense years, not enough left to fight them." What remains? The Grassroots Tavern , shuttered last year after 42 years, sits empty. Trash & Vaudeville was kicked off the street. So was St. Mark's Bookshop--and then again. Kim's Video got the boot. A lot of record shops were lost. Dojo's is long gone. The comic book shop was one of the last of its kind, a dusty, idiosyncratic leftover from the old street, when it was still part and production of the counterculture. But there is little counterculture left in the broken East Village. A century of rebelliousness down the drain.

Last week I reported that Westsider Books was closing . This week we heard the good news that it has been saved. The following is a guest post by Janice Isaac: Westsider Books is a wonderful used bookstore stuffed with books in every possible space. They could no longer afford to stay open, and locals were devastated. Apparently, non-locals were as well. Bobby Panza, a West Sider who doesn’t even know the owners personally, but who knows the store and values its uniqueness, started a GoFundMe to help keep this treasure alive . He’d been inspired by owner Dorian Thornley commenting about being able to stay open if they had $50,000 from crowdfunding. Thornly says he was “amazed and shocked...quite taken aback” when he saw, on Facebook, the campaign to save the store. The GoFundMe quickly reached its goal (thanks to donations ranging from very modest to several in the thousands), and Westsider Books will stay. Locals are overjoyed. I live in the neighborhood and have loved walking

VANISHING Located at 81st and Broadway, the great Westsider Books has just announced they will be closing. Another heartbreak for New York City bibliophiles. Owned by Dorian Thornley and Bryan Gonzalez, the shop opened in the 1980s. They call it "the last used bookstore on the Upper West Side." But the neighborhood keeps on changing, filling up with more money and more chains. “It’s all different now," Gonzalez told Narratively a few years ago. "There’s more money here, and the people have changed, and so have their tastes. Not that long ago, the city gave you a sense of belonging to something unique, exciting, cosmopolitan. Now what you find here, I can find in a Jersey mall." Westsider is a wonderful, authentically New York shop, packed from floor to ceiling with books. When I was taking classes in the neighborhood, I would stop in every week and always walked out with a book in hand. Recently, Westsider had a cameo in the excellent and very New