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A Tiny New York Town With Not One, But 5 Indie Bookstores
From https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hobart-book-village?ref=hvper.com
Exterior of Blenheim Hill Books in Hobart, New York. ALL PHOTOS: RACHEL WATSON
A Tiny New York Town With Not One, But 5 Indie Bookstores
The village of Hobart, home to fewer than 500 people, serves as a modest reminder that books can change people and places.
BY DANIEL A. GROSS
JANUARY 09, 2018
The village of Hobart, New York, is home to two restaurants, one coffee shop, zero liquor stores, and, strangely enough, five independent bookstores. “The books just show up,” Barbara Balliet, who owns Blenheim Hill Books, says. “I’ve come to the store and bags of books are waiting for me.” Fewer than 500 people live in Hobart. Yet from Main Street, in the center of town, you’re closer to a copy of the Odyssey in classical Greek, or a vintage collection of Jell-O recipes, than a gas station.
This literature-laden state of affairs emerged just after the turn of the millennium, when two residents of Manhattan, Diana and Bill Adams, stopped in Hobart during a trip through the Catskills. “We were both intrigued,” says Bill, who worked as a physician for 40 years. “I saw what a charming, and somewhat rustic, but civilized, area it was.” He and his wife Diana, a former lawyer, were looking for retirement activities that they could pursue into their old age.
During that first trip, in 2001, the couple spotted a corner store for rent at the end of Main Street. After speaking with the owner, they decided to rent it on the spot, and soon they were lugging their hefty personal book collection to Hobart, one rental car-load at a time. They didn’t expect to establish a book village in the process. “There was no plan,” Bill says. They weren’t even sure whether their bookstore would survive in the foothills of the Catskills, three miles from the main highway.
...
The village of Hobart, home to fewer than 500 people, serves as a modest reminder that books can change people and places.
BY DANIEL A. GROSS
JANUARY 09, 2018
The village of Hobart, New York, is home to two restaurants, one coffee shop, zero liquor stores, and, strangely enough, five independent bookstores. “The books just show up,” Barbara Balliet, who owns Blenheim Hill Books, says. “I’ve come to the store and bags of books are waiting for me.” Fewer than 500 people live in Hobart. Yet from Main Street, in the center of town, you’re closer to a copy of the Odyssey in classical Greek, or a vintage collection of Jell-O recipes, than a gas station.
This literature-laden state of affairs emerged just after the turn of the millennium, when two residents of Manhattan, Diana and Bill Adams, stopped in Hobart during a trip through the Catskills. “We were both intrigued,” says Bill, who worked as a physician for 40 years. “I saw what a charming, and somewhat rustic, but civilized, area it was.” He and his wife Diana, a former lawyer, were looking for retirement activities that they could pursue into their old age.
During that first trip, in 2001, the couple spotted a corner store for rent at the end of Main Street. After speaking with the owner, they decided to rent it on the spot, and soon they were lugging their hefty personal book collection to Hobart, one rental car-load at a time. They didn’t expect to establish a book village in the process. “There was no plan,” Bill says. They weren’t even sure whether their bookstore would survive in the foothills of the Catskills, three miles from the main highway.
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More at link.
1 replies
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...and went to that very store! It's an incredibly cool little village, with vistas and that neat/crappy architecture that only upstate NY seems to have...
