A new (but familiar) bookstore opens in Salinas: Downtown Book & Sound opens new doors

Kate Cimini
The Californian
A sign for the Peninsula Typewriter Exchange hangs inside the bookstore; it was found when the building owner took down a neon sign hanging in the back.

The front door sticks a little.

A small paper sign, carefully lettered, tells customers to push extra hard, that the door is indeed unlocked. It's a reminder that this very new bookstore holds a lot of local history.

Downtown Book & Sound has moved across the street from its original location, at 213 S. Main St. where, proprietor Trish Triumpho Sullivan says, it will focus on local history and local interest, among a broad range of books.

It is the only dedicated bookstore in Salinas's Oldtown, and part of a growing industry that suffered serious setbacks in recent decades with the advent of big-box bookstores, and later, online shopping. 

According to the American Booksellers Association, there are now 2,321 independent bookstores in the United States, nearly 40 percent more than there were in 2009.

The American Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the bookstore and news dealer industry employed more than 82,000 people in May of 2017.

Much of that can be attributed to Amazon's success, and the subsequent fall of big-box bookstores like Borders. With their demise, independent bookstores found a niche to fill, Harvard Business School professor Ryan Rafaelli told NPR

Furthermore, Rafaelli noted, city centers are often looking for bookstores to anchor their downtown. 

"It's a legitimate downtown if we have a bookstore," Sullivan said. And, she added, the population was there to support it. 

"Books are making a comeback," she said. "The majority of our customers are young people. They like books, they like analog, they like vinyl, they like cassette tapes. Thinking they only like digital is doing them a disservice."

 

The new store sits in the old Vanderhurst, Sanborn & Co. furniture store, which later housed the Peninsula Typewriter Exchange. Photos and signs hang on the wall that commemorate the previous tenants, along with quotes from famous authors.

The floors are a blond fir, butting up against exposed brick and plaster walls, and the ceilings are easily 20 feet high. It could be a recipe for chill, and echoes, but the large windows, tall bookcases stacked with more than 40,000 books and the sets of chairs scattered about keep the store feeling warm and comfortable.

At least, that's what customer after customer says as they step inside. 

"I want people to feel really welcome," said Sullivan. "I want them to feel like they're at home. A safe place."

And, she said, she wanted the smell of books to take up the whole room.

Sullivan conceived of a dedicated bookstore about 10 years ago, she said, but it just started coming together in the past year when Logos in Santa Cruz closed. Sullivan purchased all of the owner's leftover books and bookcases, and started moving forward with her plan to expand and renovate the concept of Downtown Book & Sound.

Downtown Book & Sound opened its 213 S. Main St. doors last week.

While Sullivan said it can be difficult to work with the city of Salinas to set up a new business -- she is currently struggling to put a sign outside the storefront, which currently is only denoted by the word "BOOK" appliqued on the glass above the front doors -- the response from the public so far has been positive, she said. 

She plans to add a music space in the second floor, complete with vinyl for sale and a listening room for acoustic performances for an all-age audience, something she feels is missing in Salinas.

The bookstore will feature new books based on customer feedback, as well as first-editions, collectibles, author-signed copies and more.

Sullivan wants to convert her old space into a wine tasting room, focusing on River Road varieties. It will be called East of Eden, as a tip of the hat to John Steinbeck, tributes to whom are everywhere in Salinas, and particularly in Downtown Book & Sound. 

On the wall hangs a chalkboard with a bottom rail made to resemble the pencils Steinbeck preferred to write with. And the wall above the back exit is painted a Steinbeck quote.

"I guess there are never enough books," it says. 

Kate Cimini is a reporter for The Salinas Californian. Contact her at (831) 776-5137 or  kcimini@thecalifornian.com.

 
https://www.thecalifornian.com/story/news/2019/02/09/salinass-downtown-book-sound-opens-its-new-set-doors/2823680002/
www.thecalifornian.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2022-27
169955
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:OO7CFG6KFN7XK3F366OMMDJ7ERDO63FK
<urn:uuid:86ac09a1-ceec-486d-8bea-a807a31ae172>
2022-07-03T07:49:35Z
146.75.34.62
text/html
sha1:TPZRCFAOEFZE3GRAS2GCZXFPWQ44BWXR
<urn:uuid:704b34d7-21fb-4ca6-a015-4053c52f9a2f>
https://www.thecalifornian.com/story/news/2019/02/09/salinass-downtown-book-sound-opens-its-new-set-doors/2823680002/
response
<urn:uuid:50c51ebd-1c7b-45de-8efb-0ce9be29fdd1>
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2022-27
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for June/July 2022
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-67-67-63
software: Apache Nutch 1.18 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 1.3-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: https://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/