Rizzoli Bookstore

This is what a bookstore should look like.

Even if you're not looking for books, come in and look at all that they have to offer... Posters, cards, books of every category!

GOOD NEWS, fellow lovers of (the former) Rizzoli Bookstore! I've extrapolated the most pertinent parts of an e-mail I just received, re: the spring opening of the new Rizzoli Bookstore:

Rizzoli is pleased to announce the new location of the Rizzoli Bookstore at 1133 Broadway in New York City's NoMad neighborhood. Opening in Spring 2015, and just three blocks north of the bustling cultural heart of Madison Square Park, Rizzoli Bookstore looks forward to joining this vibrant environment.

A contract has been signed with Kew Management Corp. for a 5,000 square foot street level retail space on 26th Street and Broadway in the Beaux-Arts Saint James, an architecturally significant stone, brick, terra cotta and masonry building dating from 1896. The new space has 29' of Broadway frontage, and 18' ceilings which will permit the design of the new store to embrace the old-world flavor of the 57th Street location.

Kew Management, a family-owned company, has had landmark buildings in its portfolio for over 60 years, and has been one of the leading forces in the redevelopment of the NoMad area as a commercial, residential and entertainment hub. Leslie Spira Lopez, owner and CEO of Kew Management, views the alliance with Rizzoli as a significant development in the ongoing revitalization of the area, stating: "We have had many opportunities to fill our retail space, but we were looking for a tenant that would reflect both the values of the community-thoughtfulness, curiosity, and creativity-and the area's Gilded Age heritage. In being able to bring Rizzoli to this location, we have exceeded our expectations."

Addressing the question of why Rizzoli is opening a new bricks-and-mortar store when others have closed, Milan-based parent RCS Libri's book division CEO Laura Donnini states: "While e-books and e-commerce is unquestionably forcing a re-examination of retail practices, the sophisticated consumer's desire for a personalized and tangible encounter has created a newly robust market for an elegant, intelligently curated, and customer-service-oriented bookstore experience." Further identifying the Rizzoli customer, Donnini adds: "For fifty-plus years the Rizzoli bookstore in New York City has attracted the discerning consumer of erudite, beautifully produced volumes on art, design, interiors, fashion, as well as literature, and important non-fiction books. Based on extensive market research in advance of the re-opening, we expect this customer-both New York-based, and visiting from all points national and international-to embrace the 21st century version of their favorite bookstore."

One of my professors self published his book and it was only available at Rizzoli (I think he was boning the owner or something) and so I took my roommate at the time, Jen, with me to go procure my copy.*

So I get my book and we leave Rizzoli and as we are crossing the street, this brand new benz being driven by some big old fat dude in a suit (the passenger was some hag wearing like 9 dead animals) attempts to run a red light and kill us. Now, I understand this is New York City and it's marshal law when it comes to basic rules of the road but COME THE FUCK ON. jen is old school new york, like her dad is in the mob and shit, and she is BALLS OUT INFUCKINGSANE NUTS. please keep in mind, i was the sweet naive white girl from California with a perpetual smile on my face. I was also stoned out of my mind. So it goes down like this:

Jen hits the roof of the car with her hands and screams: WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING, ASSHOLE!

Now, I assume that the guy will just drive off. Oh, poor, poor young Laura B., how naive I once was.

Fucking Crazy Older Obese Man (FCOOM): WHAT, YOU LITTLE BITCH?

Jen: YOU HEARD ME, YOU FAT OLD MAN!

FCOOM: YOU watch where YOU'RE going, you little BITCH!

Jen: FUCK YOU, BUDDY! YOU ALMOST FUCKING KILLED US! YOU'RE FUCKING LOCO! (Jen makes crazy signs with both her hands...you know the one where you point your index fingers out and circle them at your temples as if to say, "you're NUTS, sir!")

At this point, FCOOM unbuckles his extendabelt (tm) and starts to get out of the car.

FCOOM: That's it, you little bitch! I'M COMING TO GET YOU!

This whole time, I am frozen from fear. I'm from Northern California, people! I fucking frolicked with puppy dogs and rainbows and shit! I BELIEVED IN SANTA CLAUS UNTIL I WAS 12 YEARS-OLD! I was totally out of my element.

Jen: OH YEAH?! COME AND GET ME, YOU FAT FUCKING FUCK!

(then Jen turns her rage toward the woman in the front seat)

Jen (con'd): YOU FUCKING LET YOUR MAN TALK TO A GIRL THIS WAY?! DOES HE BEAT YOU IF YOU DON'T MAKE HIS EGGS RIGHT?! DO YOU TELL PEOPLE THAT YOU FELL? THAT YOU'RE CLUMSY? DO YOU?! DO YOU!??!?!?!

FCOOM actually gets out of his car and makes toward us.

Jen turns to me and says: Laura. Run.

And with that we take off down 57th street screaming like banshees with FCOOM making time on us yelling, "DON'T LOOK BACK! I'M COMING TO GET YOU!"

It was fucking terrifying. Luckily for us, the man weighed 600 if he weighed a pound and Jen's dad is in the mob. Did I mention that Jen's dad is in the mob and NOBODY puts baby in a corner? Or like, even looks at baby wrong. Because that fool will end up sleeping with the fishes, capisci?

I learned a lot about life that first year in New York. Now, I open beer bottles with my bare hands (NOT TWIST OFFS!) and write thank you notes in my own blood. God bless that city.

*Rizzoli is AWESOME, such a cool mad scientist/old school librarian's wet dream, like a Musuem of Books. It is one of those only in New York City type places and therefore, is better than anything in your town. Skinnier, too.

Do you need a literary art piece (i.e., a coffee table book) for your brownstone in the Upper East or Upper West Side? Do you need tomes for your library, so when you and your dinner companions have an argument over who said, "The book of life begins with a man and a woman in a garden," you could pull it and claim victory? Do you want to be appear more urbane and sophisticated with your extended collection of literary works in the original French or Spanish?

Rizzoli Bookstore is your one-stop answer for all of your cosmopolitan problems of a burghal life. The rarefied restrained air greets you with a constrained cool control. This is no Barnes & Noble with an overly jolly greeter and loud semi-classical or contemporary music that torments with you the corporate message of "See! Isn't reading FUN! Now buy all this stuff not related to books! Like games! And coffee! Who doesn't love puzzles!"

Three stories of lovely large coffee table show pieces decorate Rizzoli. Grand chandeliers hang bathing you in a warm light. Rizzoli looks and feels more like a stately library of someone's well-to-do home than a bookstore. To me, it feels as if Rizzoli was a work of one of the great Flemish artists, like Jan van Eyck. Somewhat shadowy setting of an intimate home life with the main figures and objects of interest painted with a warm and gentle light. How serene! How beauteous!

And yes, they have book for infants and toddlers on the top floor so that you may raise your progeny in a dignified manner.

Picked up a new book on German Expressionism that I was not aware of at this place. I would not have heard about it or seen it otherwise.
And that's what a good bookstore does.
It makes you buy things that will alter the way you see the world.
Nice place, great staff. Class.

Another cultural landmark is slated for demolition. Not only an independent business is being forced out, but the historical interior imagery won't last as well. The fabric of our city is slowly stripped from its true essence. Soon, all there's left is digital machines and artificial remnant.

https://www.facebook.com/RizzoliBookstore

Rizzoli is one of my favorite independent bookstores in the city. I love its layout, with the choirlike railing on the second floor. The selection of books & music is nearly unsurpassed in the city, and everything is presented in a very navigable and aesthetically pleasing way.

Don't miss the music section on the top floor, especially the small collection of gently used CDs -- there is always something good to be found. I could spend hours here!

As a self-proclaimed bibliophile and appreciator of elegance, I adore Rizzoli with a passion. Even the carefully selected titles they sell are all on topics that I thoroughly enjoy - fashion, art & design, classic literature, foreign languages, to name a few - making it even more heavenly for me.

To me, Rizzoli is the Bergdorf Goodman of bookstores, while Barnes and Nobles are the Bloomingdales (if you will). Both are nice places in different ways, but Bergdorfs just has that something extra that makes the mere act of browsing and window shopping a luxurious experience.

I would live here if I could.

Just buying a book at Rizzoli's is a special experience. The store, location, atmosphere, selection, customers...there isn't anything like it left in New York. Scribners is gone along with most of the carriage-trade booksellers; replaced by soulless, formulaic 'book malls' like Borders and Barnes and Noble with their crowds of customers and kids, half of whom seem to be looking for the bathroom. There's still an elegance and a hint of exclusivity at Rizzoli's that only a storied and celebrated bookseller and publisher could provide.

Books are artistic endeavors and deserve to be sold, showcased and celebrated in an environment that encourages exploration. Too many bookstores are little more than "supermarkets" - where literature and ideas are reduced to their inventory code. Come to Rizzoli for a recommendation, a hard to find import or a rare book on design, architecture or art you won't find at B+N or most anywhere else.

Looking like an elegant, well-stocked private library in an Upper East Side townhouse, this is the classiest bookstore in town. For those with an artistic bent, walking in here is like achieving nirvana. It's not just the tables and shelves and counters packed with all manner of tomes. There's something in the atmosphere that places it several notches above the superstores that may outdo it in floor space but don't top it in terms of selection. Art, photography, architecture, fashion, and interior design books are their specialty, but you can find everything from bestselling fiction to children's literature to sports books to music and dance as well. The volumes are arranged as artfully as an exhibit in the sculpture gallery of a museum. Passionate book browsers mix with earnest shoppers on a mission for the latest Harry Potter in a setting that is at once both expansive and cozy.