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Murder Ink, the "the world's oldest mystery bookstore" that offered everything from Tom Clancy to 50s pulp fiction, has closed.
Current owner Jay Pearsall "said he was paying $18,000 a month in rent for Murder Ink and another store, Ivy's Books & Curiosities, and couldn't afford a 5 percent increase expected in March. Competition from huge bookstore chains and online sellers didn't help."
The author of a novel titled "Murder Ink", Dilys Winn, founded the shop in 1972 and the ownership has gone through a few changes since. In 1980, the shop inspired a television show called "Murder Ink," starring Tovah Feldshuh (to play the owner of a bookshop specializing in mystery novels). The series failed, however. And the shop, which was on Broadway between 92nd and 93rd streets, shut its doors for good yesterday.
Photo via Ernae's flickr.
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Has the downtown location closed (Whitehall St.)?
The closing of this store just breaks my heart. I live in the neighborhood and I loved having a bookstore that knew my taste in mysteries and tales of espionage. I was in LA over the holiday and their mystery shop in Westwood had heard the news and they were blown away by it. It's a real crime (truly, no pun intended) that these independent booksellers cannot stay open. The staff was really distraught as was this dedicated reader.
There is a shop like this on Greenwich Ave. off 10th Street if I recall correctly.
180000 a month rent? that means they had to at least make 40,0000 a month to pay the bills. That means they had to sell at leat 1500.00 worth of books a day. How the hell is that possible? I've never seen anyone buy books at that rate. Is the store a front for cocaine and arms?
jojo: That's only about 100 books a day considering the prices now. That doesn't seem incredibly unreasonable to me.
But yes, as someone who frequented these two stores, they were definitely fronts for cocaine and arms, just like the shoe store at the corner of 92nd and Broadway.
this is good news. book stores are a blight. we need more starbucks & duane reades...
Bubba,
I hope you are being sarcastic. If not, I worry about your future, as you seem to think all we need is coffee and toiletries.
Jon
Ohh New York City and your nasty high rents..bite the big apple just don't find no maggots unh huhhh.
Glad I am miles away from there and can read about it all on this great blog.....
For whatever reason, I hadn't really noticed until this Christmas season how much it sucks to shop in box stores. There's hardly anywhere to get "different" things anymore. Target, Wally's, Best Buy, etc all offer the exact same stuff. It happened upstate in Saratoga awful quick (because there's only really one "shopping district").
NYC is going to be nothing but chain stores in the next fifteen years or so, and the chains will only be here because of the "status" of having a New York City store, and that's kind of sad. Such is business, I guess.
God, Ben, I'd hate to think what they're into at the vitamin store.
Last year they used this store for a shot in a movie with Drew Barrymore and Hugh Grant -- I guess all future movies with a "cute little bookstore in NYC" will be shot in Hollywood. Or they'll just use CGI.
Murder Ink's closure really is a shame. But there are still three other devoted mystery bookstores that I'm aware of in Manhattan - Black Orchid (UES), Mysterious Bookshop (Tribeca) and Partners & Crime (Greenwich Village). Although they're not quite as convenient for Murder Ink neighbors, they're wonderful - great selection, great staff, etc.
poster # 1 you are thinking of shakespeare and co and the whitehall st store is still open. Viva shakespeare and co!!!
Jazznewt: The Vitamin Shoppe? That's easy. Anabolic steroids! But how GNC and the Vitamin store stay open on the same block on Broadway is beyond me.
I'm serious about that shoe store though. It's been about 7 different stores in the last 8 years and all of them equally as sketchy. It's totally a front for something.
This is what's wrong with NYC these days. Greedy landlords also beat out a terrific indy video store on 105th and Broadway. Surely it will become a bank or Starbucks. The real problem (aside from greedy landlords) is that NYers frequent Starbucks, the newest branch of Chase, and Duane Reade. You vote against mom and pop businesses everytime you spend money at one of the box stores.
It's all OK. NYC will reap what NYC sows. Eventually, when it's as bad as everyone projects, no one will want to come here any more and it will cease to be the cultural and economic powerhouse it once was. Then it'll start to decline until it one day is affordable for creative people and immigrants to open cute shops again.
Yeah that'll only take 20 more years...