Sunday, May 31, 2015

Fun times at Barnes & Noble

FREE SPECIAL EVENT at Barnes & Noble at 70-00 Austin St. on SUN, MAY 31 from 10:00 AM to 7 PM

Barnes & Noble and Author Michael Perlman (5 PM book signing) are proud to invite the community to Customer Appreciation Day. The eventful lineup will feature:

- A book “Buy-In” to help support Barnes & Noble, which is under threat of closing… Purchase any book all day long.

- Free food from Knish Nosh, Red Pipe Organic Café, & more

- Beginning at 10 AM: Raffle – Enter to win a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 Nook 7” tablet!

Free B&N tote bag for the 1st 200 customers making a purchase.

- 2:30 PM: Children’s storytime with SKITTLES THE CLOWN, balloon animals & face painting

- 4 PM: Performances by notable musicians LOU MICHAELS & DOUG LEBLANG

- 5 PM: Author MICHAEL PERLMAN will have a book talk & signing of his new book, “Legendary Locals of Forest Hills and Rego Park” & notable magician MICHAEL CHAUT will leave his audience spell-bound

Barnes & Noble event listing: http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/event/4852693
More to come! Please invite your friends.

And… Don’t forget to sign the petition to save Barnes & Noble.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

The #SaveNYC crowd is expending their energy on B&N, which has been near the epicenter of the loss of mom & pop stores to chains and franchises? Get real: this outfit looks at ever branch as a profit or loss center in corporate headquarters, and online retail has been eating their lunch. They don't give a $%^& about the community or its protestations. Strange world...

Anonymous said...

Great attempt, Mike but unfortunately book stores are becoming a thing of the past. Too bad!
Even Barnes and Noble features their Nook over books.

Smaller living quarters, increased technology, Amazon.com etc.
are putting bricks and mortar stores under. We have returned to a Sears Roebuck catalogue era...this time it's electronic.
Almost everything we do is done on a computer. When the "replicator" ,of Star Treck fame, finally appears....we will be taking our food and drink from a computerized provider. Goodbye grocery stores. Being an old fashioned couch potato has reached a new zenith in the tech age.

Before moveable type appeared, books were hand produced by scribes. Now tablets have made ink on paper books obsolete.
Welcome to a brave new world. It's grimmer, but far more convenient.

Anonymous said...

Time moves on. Much of the old Forest Hills has already passed into legend.
The mom and pop stores, movie theaters, small eateries are few now.
Only in a Disneyland setting, can the iconic fantasy of Main Street U.S.A. be preserved.

Anonymous said...

Time moves on. Much of the old Forest Hills has already passed into legend.
The mom and pop stores, movie theaters, small eateries are few now.
Only in a Disneyland setting, can the iconic fantasy of Main Street U.S.A. be preserved.

wrong wrong wrong

Communities need strong mom and pops, not gin mills favored because their landlords buy off politicians to ignore what a plague they are to communities. The reasons that catalogs died in the first place is nothing is better than a knowledgeable sales person who stocks every widget you need, or can get one for you.

Computer buying can help with generic items, perhaps, as a case of cardboard boxes, but too many times today you have to drive to some place (taking up time that has to be added to the real cost) to a warehouse that stocks a million widgets but not the one you need. Expect no help from the overworked minimum wage help.

But the disappearance of the community store is another example of the pols hollowing out communities. The local merchants used to be big supporters of community groups and advocates for the neighborhood - not something found for chain stores and Jogdish from S Ozone Park working off his green card in Glendale for a cousin the sponsored him.

Finally, books will never be replaced. We gained something with the internet, but lost something when the card catalog disappeared. Electronic media is just another format but will never replace in the pulp books that you can page through in your lap - 100%.

Anonymous said...

Micheal is so good-intentioned but ...

it was so painful to see his effort and research to 'save' the clock tower in queens plaza was by a person totally clueless that the fix was in for a real estate deal and his work all but irrelevant to the parties that was orchestrating the effort.

Anonymous said...

All the wishful thinking about needing mom and pop stores goes out the window with your fantasies. The outlandish rents being charged put mom and pop out of the running. Wake up. If you crave nostalgia, move to Disney World.

Anonymous said...

Good intentioned without money or power produces nothing. Living in the past makes shrinks a lot of money.

Anonymous said...

I gave up on Peter Pan and Never Never Land when I was eight years old.
Unfortunately, I had to grow up and face change.

Anonymous said...

Noble attempt (not a pun), but sadly it's the end of the line for these book chains. Even the ones in Manhattan are now just glorified coffee shops and places for nannies to take kids to run. Maybe their demise can be held off for a year or two, but that's likely it.

Anonymous said...

Save the Trylon. Save Barnes and Noble.
Save the old Forest Hills (whatever that is) .

This is for real. I once opened up a fortune cookie which read.
"With money , a dragon. Without money, a worm".

Groan,
The truth can really hurt.

Anonymous said...

15 years ago people were protesting the death of bookstores, being driven out of the market by chains like Barnes & Noble.

Now people are protesting the death of Barnes & Nobles? This opens up room for small bookstores again.

Anonymous said...

A small bookstore, say the size of Banana Republic on Austin St, would still have to beat a $20k monthly rent. Put that store on Metropolitan Av , rent would be $5-$6k. On Queens Blvd, perhaps $10k. So if you stay away from Austin St, someone could open a bookstore and barely make a profit. If it becomes a good and popular store, profits will grow as long as the landlord doesn't raise the rent dramatically.

Anonymous said...

Or go to the Astoria Bookshop, the only independent bookstore in Queens.