4 Comments January 12, 2012 at 11:00 am

cityscape

More Lost Words

With news last week that three bookstores—The Book Mark, Glad Day, and Dragon Lady Comics—are to be sold or closed, we look back at some beloved bookshops from Toronto's past.

By Jamie Bradburn

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119541 A&A Books & Records While most people remember A&A as a music chain, the company’s flagship location at 351 Yonge Street <a href="http://www.jewishtoronto.com/blog_post.aspx?id=3873">began as a bookstore</a> in the mid-1940s. While records became the focus of the business, the book section found its niche by selling textbooks to Ryerson students and those studying medicine at U of T. Following the sale of A&A by founders Alice and Mac Kenner to Columbia Records in the early 1970s, drastic cuts were made to the section’s size and selection. The reductions were carried out poorly, leading to complaints from customers who couldn’t find the titles they wanted and publishers who received more returns than anticipated. By the time corporate decided to exit the book business in 1974, its sales were around 10 per cent mass market titles, 90 percent textbooks. A 1960s postcard of Yonge Street. Image from <a href="http://chuckmanothercollection.blogspot.com/2006/05/blog-post_114894782993022559.html">Chuckman's Other Collection (Toronto Postcards)</a>. 20120111aa https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120111aa-100x100.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120111aa.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120111aa.jpg 640 422 [] https://torontoist.com/2012/01/more-lost-words/slide/20120111aa/ 20120111aa 0 0

119542 The Children’s Book Store During a quarter of a century in business, The Children’s Book Store received plenty of praise for its large selection of material for young readers. This ad gives a sense of the store’s programming following its move to 604 Markham Street in 1980. In its final years on Yonge Street in North Toronto, the store faced expanded children’s sections at recently opened branches of Chapters and Indigo to its south. When the store closed in January 2000, its library and wholesale divisions were sold to a company largely owned by Chapters. Advertisement, Quill & Quire, October 1980. 20120111cbs https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120111cbs-100x100.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120111cbs.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120111cbs.jpg 640 1972 [] https://torontoist.com/2012/01/more-lost-words/slide/20120111cbs/ 20120111cbs 0 0

119543 Longhouse Books It was a concept predicted to fail in a hurry. Who was crazy enough to stock a bookstore with nothing but Canadian titles? Yet Longhouse Books proved the naysayers wrong when it opened at 630 Yonge Street north of Wellesley in 1972. Partners Beth Appeldoorn and Susan Sandler opened the store out of anger. “There were Canadian books around, but they weren't given the emphasis they deserved,” they told the Globe and Mail in a 1995 interview. “That little Canadiana section was insulting. We jumped in at the right time. But we did think about it, and we had good advice. We were not totally stupid, but we probably were crazy.” Of the many launches held at Longhouse, the owners felt Margaret Laurence’s appearance to promote <a href="http://archives.cbc.ca/arts_entertainment/literature/topics/161-802/">The Diviners</a> was the most memorable: Margaret had never done a launch in her life because she was always very nervous, and Margaret didn't take crowds. But there was a crowd of people. Somebody came in and said, “What movie is showing?” We had to drag Margaret right away downstairs to the basement to give her a Valium. She never knew it was Valium. She thought it was an aspirin. But she was so shaky. She came back up and did a fabulous two hours of signing and talking. We put her behind a little table with chairs so she could hold onto the table. Appeldoorn and Sandler sold the store in 1989, which promptly moved to 497 Bloor Street West. It closed six years later. Advertisements in the Globe and Mail; September 25, 1979, (left) and December 15, 1990 (right). 20120111longhouse https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120111longhouse-100x100.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120111longhouse.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120111longhouse.jpg 640 506 [] https://torontoist.com/2012/01/more-lost-words/slide/20120111longhouse/ 20120111longhouse 0 0

119544 Tyrrell’s Bookshop William Tyrrell entered the bookselling world as a 16-year old clerk shortly after his arrival from England in 1882. Twelve years later he opened his first store on King Street East at Yonge Street. The store later moved to 820 Yonge, across the street from longtime competitor Albert Britnell. Tyrrell didn’t let friendship stand in the way of what he believed he should sell; reportedly he refused to stock books written by friends if the work’s political slant was not to his liking. Following Tyrrell’s retirement during World War II, the store was run by Phyllis Atwood. Deacon noted that “her friends will all be glad that she is shedding her responsibilities and ensuring her own future.” The store operated for a few more years under the Tyrrell’s banner. When Tyrrell’s Bookshop was sold to British retailer <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W_H_Smith">W.H. Smith</a> in 1958, one question was what would happen to the ancient clock that had been there since founder William Tyrrell’s early days in business. “It was probably not bought on the morn that the old man was born,” wrote the Globe and Mail’s <a href="http://torontoist.com/2011/04/historicist_the_cheesiest_poet_of_all/">William Arthur Deacon</a>, “but it certainly was ‘ever his pride and joy.’” To relief of store staff, the new owners decided to maintain it. King Street East, looking east to Victoria Street, 1910. Tyrrell's can be seen at the far right. City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1244, Item 7345. 20120111tyrrell https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120111tyrrell-100x100.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120111tyrrell.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120111tyrrell.jpg 640 441 [] https://torontoist.com/2012/01/more-lost-words/slide/20120111tyrrell/ 20120111tyrrell 0 0

119545 Village Book Store Deriving its name from Toronto’s “Greenwich Village” along Gerrard Street between Yonge and University, Martin Ahvenus opened Village Book Store in 1961. The shop gave strong support to Canadian poets—as Toronto Life noted in 1970, Ahvenus “encourages, amuses, and sells them, and they adorn his walls with graffiti.” It was also noted that the Village was “where the secondhand book dealers gather to talk shop on Thursday nights.” The store moved to 239 Queen Street West in the early 1970s and became one of the busiest used book stores along the strip. Final owner Eric Wellington provided a long list of reasons for the store’s closure in January 2000: rising taxes, eroding profits, changing demographics of Queen West, chains, exhaustion from working every day, and a notice that TTC was going to repair the streetcar tracks. Wellington found that the Queen West crowd “has gotten much younger and they are a digital generation. They don’t read.” Advertisement, Books in Canada, May 1971. 20120106vbs https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120106vbs-100x100.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120106vbs.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120106vbs.jpg 640 1365 [] https://torontoist.com/2012/01/more-lost-words/slide/20120106vbs/ 20120106vbs 0 0

119546 Writers & Co A pair of legacies for North Toronto-based Writers & Co.: 1. When CBC Radio needed a title for a new literary show, it asked owner Irene McGuire for permission to use her store’s name. The choice worked, as <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/writersandcompany/">the series is still on the air</a>. 2. The store’s original location was 2094½ Yonge Street. The number intrigued British author <a href="http://www.julianbarnes.com/">Julian Barnes</a>. As longtime manager (and, later, owner) Winston Smith told the Star when the store closed in 1999, Barnes “told us he had never encountered a ½ address before and he was interested in the phenomenon.” The author was inspired by the address to title his next novel A History Of The World in 10½ Chapters. Advertisement, Now, March 27, 1986. 20120111wac https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120111wac-100x100.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120111wac.jpg https://torontoist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/20120111wac.jpg 640 590 [] https://torontoist.com/2012/01/more-lost-words/slide/20120111wac/ 20120111wac 0 0

Last week, after hearing about a trio of local bookstores facing closure or sale, we looked at some of Toronto’s past purveyors of literature. As we wrote then, it feels as if Toronto is experiencing a cycle of closures similar to the late 1990s. Back then, blame initially fell upon big box stores like Chapters and Indigo; now it’s online retailers and e-books. In both cases these big bads were only part of the problem: increased rent appears to be a critical element of the current closure cycle. Cold commentators might say that technology is making bookstores obsolete, or that owners should only blame themselves when their business ends, but whenever any long-running store closes, it feels as if a reassuring piece of the local landscape has gone with it.

We’ve gathered up six more stores from the city’s history, ones that show the diversity of booksellers over the years, with specialties ranging from children’s prose to all-Canadian publications.

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