Bookstore Opening Today in Santa Monica Has a Legendary Past

Book lovers rejoice! A new bookstore opens today in Santa Monica. It’s another branch of the Barnes & Noble chain, but any chance to peruse books (and the print edition of Los Angeles magazine – plug) is much appreciated in this age. The store, at 1318 Third Street Promenade, is also to be applauded for bringing life back to a street that has become more forlorn by the day, inspiring guerrilla banners blaming Santa Monica politicos for the current state of the neighborhood. For many years, Barnes & Noble occupied the landmark Europa building (1935, Morgan, Walls, and Clements) at the corner of 3 ^rd & Wilshire until closing in 2018.

Former Barnes & Noble owner Leonard Riggio , who died on Tuesday at age 83 from complications of Alzheimer’s disease, launched the concept of book ‘superstores’ in the 1990s. He opened massive outlets with discounted prices and comforts like sofas and cafes in malls and in prominent spots in popular shopping districts.

“Our bookstores were designed to be welcoming as opposed to intimidating,” Riggio told The New York Times in 2016. “These weren’t elitist places. You could go in, get a cup of coffee, sit down and read a book for as long as you like, use the restroom. These were innovations that we had that no one thought was possible.”

At the turn of the century, an estimated one out of every eight books sold in the U.S. were sold by B&N. Amazon soon displaced the bookseller from their top position as the brick-and-mortar store struggled to catch up with technology and the company’s stock dropped 60% between 2015 and 2018.

Independent booksellers had long blamed the behemoths for suffocating sales and stealing customers. The arrival of Amazon only hurried the decline of the indies.

One of the most memorable losses from this time was the Midnight Special bookstore in Santa Monica founded by Margie Ghiz. Her 2016 obituary calls her a “lifelong revolutionary and activist… [who] spent her entire life fighting for social justice and equal rights for all working class and under-represented people.”

Ghiz first volunteered at the bookstore run by a co-op of students and activists in Venice in 1971. She eventually purchased the shop and moved it to 3 ^rd Street in 1980. “One lady came in and asked me where we keep our ‘normal books’ she told an interviewer in 1991.

Midnight Special featured prominent speakers and provocative window displays and was a favorite of prominent writers Octavia Butler, Walter Mosley, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez . Ghiz hosted readings of banned books, poetry workshops, and political meetings in a space rented from L.A. real estate baron Wally Marks , whose family helped develop Third Street into the Santa Monica mall and later the Third Street Promenade.

Ghiz’s shop re-opened in a much-expanded space owned by Marks in 1992. He had a massive cast concrete artwork showing a shelf of books installed above the door and helped Ghiz with support and reduced rent at 1318 3 ^rd Street. "He's believed in us more than anything; he's the one that gave us this opportunity," Ghiz told Bookselling This Week . "I mean, he's been subsidizing us for 10 years now; he just can't afford it anymore.”

Ghiz relocated to a short-lived spot around the corner, but the store soon closed. Those concrete books have looked down on a succession of shops ever since, including Benetton and Athleta stores, but starting today, they will once again welcome book lovers inside.