Warwick's Bookstore Saved By Local Booklovers
Speaker 1: 00:00 Keeping small businesses open can be a challenge. And the pandemic proved to be too challenging for some especially locally owned bookstores. Many are closing that chapter and neighborhood storefronts and shutting their doors, waterworks bookstore. And the Hoya has been in business for 125 years. The last 70 in the same building on Gerard Avenue, the owners believe it's the oldest family owned bookstore in America, but then the building's owner accepted and unsolicited $8.3 million cash bid from someone wanting to buy the building. Suddenly its very existence was up in the air until a local group decided to buy it back. Our producer, Pat Finn spoke with John Wilkins, a feature writer for the San Diego union Tribune about what has turned into a happy ending here's that interview. Speaker 2: 00:51 So these days we're used to hearing about independent bookstores and other small businesses closing. And yet here we have an entirely different outcome for a Warwick's in LA Jolla. So John start by telling us about where Wix for those who don't know what's its history. Speaker 3: 01:09 Well, Wix has been on Gerard Avenue there in that same spot for almost 70 years. It was started back in Minnesota by William Warwick, back in 1896 and he opened the store there and moved it to Iowa briefly and then came to LA in 1939. And it's been in that same location since 52. And now we're in the fourth generation of the family that has owned the bookstore, Nancy Warwick and her sister. Cathy are the current owners who took over in 2001 Speaker 2: 01:37 That's pretty remarkable. So this current chapter in the Warwick saga bill begins when Nancy was negotiating a new lease. So what happened? Speaker 3: 01:48 That's right. She was negotiating a new lease. She thought they were getting fairly close to some kind of a lease. You know, everybody's been a little bit nervous about doing anything long-term because of the COVID pandemic. Everybody's a little bit uneasy about what the future will bring, but she thought they were getting close. And then she got word that, um, the owners, longtime family and loyal to the Cory family, which could own that building for over a hundred years, they were going to sell it for 8.3 million and Nancy Warwick was given 15 days to beat that offer or uh, facing uncertain future with a new landlord. Speaker 2: 02:21 Well, coming up with, uh, 8.3 million in two weeks is not an easy task for most anybody. And then Jack McGrory found out that we're weeks would probably have to leave. So remind our audience of who Jack McGrory is. Speaker 3: 02:38 Well, Jack McGrory was a long time, uh, manager at the city of San Diego. So he spent a mover and shaker in the community for a long time. He now works for a real estate investment company and he is a customer of Warwick's. He heard about this deal going down with the building being sold by Steve of lawyer who was real estate broker, who was the gentleman who was negotiating the lease for Nancy Warwick. So he is also, he and his family are also customers of the store. So the guy who had a personal interest in what was going to happen there. So they immediately began phoning around to people. They knew in the community who they thought might be interested in, perhaps helping out and pretty soon, uh, in short order they put together a group of about three dozen people. Most of them from the lawyer who agreed to put up the money to outbid the other, the other group and by the golden, that speaks to the way, uh, small businesses and bookstores in commute in particular can have a particular special place in communities. Speaker 3: 03:39 You know, there are places where people go to exchange ideas to be together. Uh, so, uh, when, when one of them is threatened, communities will sometimes rally to try to save them. And we've seen that happen before in San Diego. You know, if you remember book catapult in self-park a couple of years ago, um, one of the co-owners there had serious health problems and it looked like, um, the star was going to have to close and a bunch of other booksellers and community mentors got together and volunteered their time to work in the store and keep it open. So bookstores have a special place in the hearts of many people in communities. Speaker 2: 04:15 So many small bookstores have not been able to be saved. W what's been the dynamic about this because many have gone under recently, but this started before the pandemic, right? Speaker 3: 04:27 Yeah. I mean, it's, it's been going on for a while on the pressures on small businesses in general are our bookstores are not immune to those, but of course bookstores have been under serious threat for some time since 1989. Um, you know, there were about maybe 4,000 bookstores in America back then by 2008, we were down to about 1400. But, uh, since then, uh, in the last decade plus of those numbers have rally, we're now probably over 2,500 bookstores in America and the bookstores have done that by emphasizing the things that they do best the hand selling where you go into a store and a bookseller will chat with you for a few minutes and find out what your interests are, what kind of books you've enjoyed in the past. And we'll steer you to some titles and they've emphasized, uh, author events and other things in the stores, humidity set, rallied around them. Speaker 3: 05:19 Remember books like Warren Brock's, uh, bookstore downtown, you know, there used to be seven or eight bookstores downtown. There aren't any. Now she, you know, there used to be almost a dozen bookstores along, uh, Adams Avenue in normal Heights. You know, in recent years we've also seen bookstores come in, you know, verbatim in, uh, North park, diesel has opened up a branch in Del Mar you mentioned run for cover and ocean ocean beach, which went out of business as a physical store, but it's still online, um, apply books. And in point Loma mysteries, galaxy Claremont looked like it might have to go out of business when it lost its lease as well. A couple of local residents stepped up to buy that bookstore and move it to midway district. Speaker 2: 06:01 Yeah. So I've been getting emails about save mysterious galaxy buy books online from them, Speaker 3: 06:09 You know, and the pandemic of course has been really hard on bookstores too, because cause retailing shutdown. So those are special things that I mentioned earlier that had helped, uh, rally the fortunes of bookstores. They lost those kinds of things. They couldn't do author events, they couldn't do the hand selling in the same way, but again, communities across the country have rallied. Um, and uh, they have turned to online ordering for a lot of these bookstores. In fact, some bookstores in other cities have reported, uh, that the depen demic year was one of the best years they've ever had. Speaker 2: 06:40 Well, that's amazing. I've been speaking with John Wilkins of the San Diego union Tribune. John, thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
