After 24 years in Latham, The Book Barn closed its doors for good in a frenzy of sales and goodbyes from longtime customers.
Due to a raise in rent, store owner Dan Driggs decided to close his store at 200 Troy Schenectady Road. For the past three weeks, the store saw hundreds of customers coming and going in a steady stream to pick up books from emptying shelves. The store officially closed last Sunday, July 19.
The bookstore was one of the last in Latham and saw over two decades of business from regular customers, devoted to the used bookstore that sold everything from comic books and mysteries to religion and biographies.
“I started it before anyone knew what the words ebook, Kindle or Nook meant. But everything changes,” said Driggs.
It first opened in 1991 on Route 2 in Watervliet. It then moved 10 years later to 200 Troy Schenectady Road, a small strip mall just down the road, where it stayed until its close.
Unfortunately, Driggs said, Route 2 never became the booming retail area that Route 9 in Clifton Park is, like retailers expected. Once Kmart closed, many shoppers stopped traveling to the area, and although there is new construction, it doesn’t make up for the lack in traffic.
“There’s beautiful construction here. Cumberland Farms is a beautiful building, but it’s not going to pull people from Clifton Park,” Driggs said. “It’s a little bit smoke and mirrors.”
When Driggs’ landlord raised the rent, he found himself unable to find another building for a more reasonable price and decided to close.
“So the landlord raised the rent, not unreasonable. There’s no animosity there,” said Driggs. He explained he felt the hike in rent was more like a full retail-building price and not supportive “for a strip where I’m pulling in 98 percent of the all the people by myself.”
While he would have liked to have stayed open for another five years or so, Driggs said the past 24 years were fulfilling. Previously an English teacher, he said he has always had a love for books and reading, which is why he preferred the classics most of all, and simply decided to open his own bookstore.
The Book Barn grew from a small store to about five times that size, holding tens of thousands of books and selling millions in its lifetime. Many of his customers were longtime, and some even remembered the day the store opened.
As Driggs worked the cash register, customers reminisced with him about the past.
“I remember when you were over in that church,” said one customer, a man with his arms full of books, referring to the store’s original location where Grace Fellowship Church now sits. “You’re better than other bookstores.”
Another book-buyer recalled going to The Book Barn a decade ago when she went to Sage College. As she picked up her bag, she told Driggs she would be telling her brother from out-of-state to stop by the store when he visited last weekend.
“I think my customers are sadder than I am,” Driggs said. “I’m sad, but the biggest problem is it leaves a heck of a void. There are no more bookstores in Latham….Some of these people have been with me for 24 years. They’ve been coming in, and it’s like losing a member of your family.”
He said he has sold books to kids of his original customers. One regular, Driggs said, now in her early 30s, started going to the store when she was only 8 years old.
Whenever people started telling him how sorry they are to hear the store was closing, Driggs said he always redirects the conversation to talk about how good of a run he had for the last two decades.
In fact, Driggs said what he would miss most about the store were the readers. “Only 30 percent of the American public read more than five books a year, but there is no definition for what those 30 percent are,” he said.
All walks of life went into his bookstore, from people with PhDs to bikers. He said he found readers to be more patient and less likely to lose their tempers.
“If they got to wait in a line, they just go look at another book,” said Driggs.
But now, he said, he gets to go home and play with his grandson. Driggs’ future plans might include opening an online store, or doing trade shows, but he decided to take it easy in August after being busy for seven days a week for the last five years.
“This is my love,” Driggs said. “It’s going to be tough. I think we might see some people (open bookstores) as a hobby. This was not a hobby. It’s been a love, but not a hobby.”
