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Bookstores, Theaters, Newspapers, and Neighborhoods-- The New Urban 'Bland'

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Services for Real Estate Pros

Bonanza BooksMy bride and I were discussing the changes in our town, in our neighborhood, and in the way kids grow up these days over our coffee this morning as she bemoaned the fact that Bonanza Books is going out of business.  Bonanza-- long the independent new and used book store in downtown Walnut Creek-- is a symbol of our small-town past when people actually went downtown and browsed for goods [like books] instead of browsing for them on their laptops.  Unlike some other shopping, the used bookstore phenomenon specialized in that feeling of elation at actually finding something worthy of buying.  Browsing for a $4 treasure became an art form for the married and the single crowd alike [though few marrieds gathered for a cup of coffee after bumping into each other in the Saturday evening stacks and deciding time together was better than time alone].  

I'm convinced that some master urban planner [in a grey fabric cube somewhere] is secretly plotting to have ALL symbols of our formerly small-town, agrarian, and somewhat "Leave It To Beaver" neighborhood past erased in favor of the homogeneous, franchised, cookie-cutter blandness of Gaps and Starbucks and Chipotles and Barnes and Nobles and, well... you get the idea.  But the beauty of a Bonanza Books was really more a testament to how life used to be more interactive in general.  We had the Fox Theater when we were kids.  One screen and the movie ran until people stopped showing up.  Our kids had the 4-screen megaplex that grew into the 16-screen micro box 'theaters' that pass for a movie house today.  Soon all our kids' kids likely will have is their 60-inch flat-screen and a NetFlix download.  The collective gasps during a horror movie, the laughs of a comedy, and tears of a tear-jerker will simply vanish as people 'see' movies in the privacy of their homes [or cars, or cubes at work] and cease the ritual adjournment for a milkshake to discuss the merits [or their lack] of the last two hours' shared experience in the dark.  Strange and a little bit sad to think that "the balcony was closed" basically forever by the time my kids were in high school....

When this summer brings the annual renewal of the local newspaper I'll sit on the bill until the last moment thinking I'll be able to convert my bride into an online reader but I'll end up paying the renewal for another year.  There's something calming and magic about her daily ritual of reading day-old [or longer] news on newsprint while sipping a cup of tea on the couch with the dogs cradled in beside her snoring every afternoon until she succumbs and lays the paper down and joins them in a pre-dinner hour nap. 

stacks of booksOur neighborhood is two minutes from the core of the downtown.  When we moved in, they still had parades running from time to time down Main Street.  That doesn't happen anymore.  We had mostly independent shops and restaurants and locally-owned services doing business.  Most of these are gone-- replaced by corporate America in a well-dressed, pseudo-village facade.  Independents simply cannot afford the rents that can be commanded on a well-walked downtown street.  Just as young families from a variety of backgrounds cannot afford houses in our neighborhoods.  When we moved here it was because there was a diverse-looking ethnic population at the local high school and we thought our kids would benefit from many cultures blending together.  That population has become increasingly upscale, increasingly less-diverse ethnically, and increasingly less interesting.  Our neighbors next door are a younger couple who have been in their house for almost three years and I can count the number of times I have SEEN them on two hands.  They must work 26 hours a day-- they are only occasionally seen walking from front door to car door and they simply don't choose to engage the neighborhood in any neighborly way.

And, apparently, they don't browse for used books downtown either.  

Chris Hendricks

Tricia Jumonville
Bradfield Properties - Georgetown, TX
Texas REALTOR , Agent With Horse Sense

That is sad.  Our communities are moving online (and I love my online communities, don't get me wrong, I interact in much the same way there - here - as in real life) but browsing online for books isn't quite the same as pouring through the shelves at a used (or new) bookstore.  I work in a small town where we still have a courthouse square and local businesses, but with the opening of the new mall on the edge of town, and all of the chains that preceded it on the frontage roads of IH35 as it goes through town, what makes the town unique is gradually being pushed aside.  All because people MUST have their big box stores.

As Joni Mitchell says, "They paved paradise, And put up a parking lot."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mar 26, 2008 10:02 AM
Pat Enterrios
Coldwell Banker SkyRidge Realty - Lake Arrowhead, CA
Keep the faith...I have a son, college student that still enjoys nothing better that to sit and read a Classic. I thinks alot of our young people still enjoy down time and there is nothing better than a good book
Mar 26, 2008 10:07 AM
Mike Mueller
Tech and Social Media Consultant - Walnut Creek, CA

Chris - I was saddened by the loss of bonanza as well.  My wife used to work in the same building, right above the bookstore.  I'd come to meet her for lunch and browse the tech manual and cookbook section till she came down.

As an aside, I met my wife twenty plus years ago at Abernathy's next door.  She was underage, slightly tipsy, and there with her room mate (who was dating the bouncer)(who was my room mate).   We kissed on the sidewalk that first night and never looked back.

Abernathy's is long gone but I had to chuckle.  This last Sunday night my Freshman Daughter went to a Dance in the club that now occupies the old Abernathy's.  When I dropped her off I told her not to talk to any boys.  (yeah right)

She knows the whole story, has heard it time and time again.  So I got the teenage eyeroll as you was getting out of the car.

   

 

 

Mar 26, 2008 11:38 AM
Erby Crofutt
B4 U Close Home Inspections&Radon Testing (www.b4uclose.com) - Lexington, KY
The Central Kentucky Home Inspector, Lexington KY

The neighborhood spirit kind of went away when back decks replaced front porches.

Mar 27, 2008 02:49 AM
Chris Hendricks
Walnut Creek, CA

Tricia:  "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone."

Pat:  Your son sounds exceptional... I'm not convinced my son has read an actual book in a LONG time.

Mike:  I remember Abernathy's well-- though we were the really young 'old married folks' having dinner in there back then instead of the young bucks hitting the bar.  We'll have to grab coffee soon and compare notes....

Erby:  Spot on correct.  My house has a long front porch that we never use anymore [except to store my bride's decorative old farm implements-- there's no one out front there to visit with].  I was thinking of enclosing part of it and converting the space into a wine cellar so I could entice more friends to come over for dinner, hang out inside, and visit.  It wouldn't be the same, but it would, at least, make use of the space.

Mar 27, 2008 02:59 AM