On July 18th, Borders Group, Inc. announced that it was closing 400 bookstores and liquidating its inventory, having failed to find a rescuer after it declared bankruptcy. The company is another victim of technology, having missed the boat, the train, and even the bus that runs to the online hubs for selling books and music.
You might think that an ancient city like Santa Fe, New Mexico, would be slow to embrace change, but in this case, it seemed to be ahead of the curve, because here’s what we encountered at the former location of its Borders store in the Sanbusco Center on the 17th, just a day before the aforelinked announcement.
In reality, the Santa Fe store knew its fate back in February, soon after Borders announced its bankruptcy.
This is downright spooky – 25,000 square feet of mostly empty space previously crammed full of books and music, although as you can see in the first photo, someone is trying to keep the coffee shop alive – it’s now called the Lucky Bean Café – which actually makes the place even weirder. I assume that the café is the only reason this space is still open to the public. It’s interesting to note that the store’s website was active at the time of this writing and even listed events scheduled for later this summer.
This was one of our favorite places to visit in Santa Fe. Its collection of technology-related books was probably the best I’ve ever seen, ironic given the fact that technology proved to be the company’s downfall.