Report: Old Heights Books Spot Soon to be Ricky’s Halloween Store

By on September 10, 2009 8:54 pm in Real Estate

BHB contributor/author/Brooklyn Heights resident/Celine Dion’s #1 fan/Vanilla Ice expert Chuck Taylor dispatched this missive to us tonight:

I noticed on the way home today that the Heights Books space is being prepped for a new opening and asked the workers what was coming. They told me that Ricky’s next door is opening a temp Halloween costume shop!

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  • x

    I wrote about this at 1 pm today on the Open Thread :P

  • ELB

    this feels like a violation. Why can’t Montague street get a new bookstore? B&N should not be the only option for blocks and blocks around. I love Bookcourt, maybe a branch in our ‘hood?

  • AEB

    The answer, ELB, is that, alas, independent bookstore wih ESTABLISHED leases are struggling to stay afloat.

    Thus it’s unlikely that one will open on Montague, especially given today’s financial climate.

  • tb

    There goes the neighborhood. Seriously.

  • http://chucktaylorblog.blogspot.com/ Chuck Taylor

    come on guys… it’s a TEMP store for halloween… at least it’s not another nail spa!

  • RatNYC

    What I’d really like to know is who in this boring neighborhood will buy all those skimpy costumes. On second thought, maybe I really don’t want to know…

  • x

    All those kids from St Francis College and other neighborhood teens will buy them!

  • jiker

    sweet! halloween is the only holiday i like.

  • http://elonanit.blogspot.com Tina

    I’d MUCH rather there be a bookstore there and am slightly resentful towards that guy who owned the bookstore before because, he wasn’t nice and didn’t run that store very well. A cozy cool bookstore would be fantastic and I would frequent it for sure. …humph!

  • David on Middagh

    @Tina: The owner of Heights Books (now on Smith St.) is still, I believe, Tracy Walsch… a “she”, not a “he”.

    I too would like a bookstore on Montague Street. Heights Books moved when the building was sold, in anticipation of a rent increase.

  • David on Middagh

    Addendum: Heights Books had two owners plus a third investor/manager (Tracy Walsch).

    http://brooklynheightsblog.com/archives/2936

  • nabeguy

    Full disclosure: my father and uncle ran the 8th Street Bookshop in the Village, which in the pre-B&N days of superstores, was one of the most popular and successful independent bookstores in the city. As much as I’d love to see a new store of its kind on Montague Street, experience tells me that the high rents will make that an impossible dream. My father and uncle had the fore site to realize that early enough on and decided to buy a building on the block, which was the only way they could grow their business without being at the mercy of the commercial rental market. Trust me, bookselling may be a noble profession, but it’s a labor of love. And, in this digital age, one that’s seeing the writing on the kindle.

  • http://elonanit.blogspot.com Tina

    Thanks David: re: Heights Books owner – maybe I just encountered a mean guy that worked there before. I shouldn’t be so quick to judge.

  • http://elonanit.blogspot.com Tina

    Well said Nabeguy! My mother runs bookstores in Washington State and says the same thing about the kindle, although not as cleverly as you just did. It’s sad because I love books and though I see the appeal of the kindle can’t get my brain around it. I prefer to lug around a hard copy, no matter how big or heavy.

  • nabeguy

    Appreciate where you’re coming from Tina, especially given that I happen to be a director of book production. Guttenberg had a pretty good run with his invention, but the era of downloads (or dumploads, as I prefer to call them) is upon us.

  • RatNYC

    yeah, we need more bookstores, nails spas and mattress stores to reach our goal to be the most a** boring, lamest neighborhood in the city, and death to slutty nurse halloween costume stores. I really need to move to Manhattan (and I speak for the 2 or 3 single people who have the missfortune to live here)!