Leslie and I were in the city last night, and we passed the moribund Borders on 2nd Ave. I didn't want to go in, but I'm glad we did. After the shock wore off, I started snapping pictures. Leslie didn't understand my fascination, so I explained.
Growing up in the 80s and being a young adult in the 90s, record and book stores are lodged deep in my memory. They were a huge part of my experience. If you lived in Maryland, you can't forget Kemp Mill:
Maryland also had a handful of decent used records stores, one of which I worked at right before going to college.
I didn't start really loving books until my sophomore year at UMCP (this would have been around 1998), and by that time Borders and B&N were already well-established and pushing out smaller bookstores (iTunes wasn't launched until 2001, FWIW). In fact, before too long B&N took over the UMCP Student Union book store. This was very controversial at the time, and I recall discussions about Starbucks in the libraries (did this happen? I'm unsure).
So with the death of Borders, I reckon it's comeuppance. Later I'll be finishing up some Oscar Wilde on my Kindle. And while that device is really incredible, for kids being born now there is a vastly diminishing chance to have the experience of digging through racks at a record store or tilting one's head at 45 degrees to read the titles on the spines. Perhaps not even at a massive chain. I guess the opportunity won't go away completely, but it'll be much more rare.
Yay, cloud? I guess it's bittersweet.
Short video walk-through of Borders: