Upper West Side Bookstore To Close After 34 Years
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
You can close the book on Murder Ink, which called itself the oldest mystery-themed bookstore in the world.
A rent increase was the deathblow for the popular shop, which closed Sunday after 34 years on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, owner Jay Pearsall said.
“I was a little outraged that a well-run bookstore couldn’t make it in the best book-buying neighborhood in the world, but there’s no business model that can work,” Mr. Pearsall lamented.
He said he was paying $18,000 a month in rent for Murder Ink and another store, Ivy’s Books & Curiosities, and couldn’t afford a 5% increase expected in March. Competition from bookstore chains and online sellers didn’t help.
Murder Ink offered titles ranging from 1950s pulp fiction to the latest Tom Clancy thriller.
