Two New Bookstores to Emerge From Schwartz Bookshops Closure

This week, 82-year-old Milwaukee landmark Harry W. Schwartz Bookshop announced that it would be shutting down its four stores as of March 31. At the same time, two Schwartz locations are being acquired separately by Schwartz's employees and will open under new names and new ownership.

In an e-mail to customers announcing the decision to close its stores, Harry W. Schwartz President Carol Grossmeyer and Chairman Rebecca Schwartz, wrote: "We believe there is wisdom in knowing the appropriate time to say farewell.... For eight decades, we have remained a family-owned business. Harry and Reva Schwartz, followed by their son A. David Schwartz, guided the independent book business from 1927, when Harry opened his first store in the back of a Downer Avenue beauty parlor, to today's age of computer publishing and the surge of Internet shopping."

Grossmeyer and Schwartz explained that "profound shifts in how people shop and equally great changes in the book industry left us and many other well-established bookshops with dwindling sales." The current economic crisis "was, for us, the final blow."

Approximately 65 people work for Harry W. Schwartz, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Grossmeyer told MJS that "this has been the most emotional six months of my life and now it's culminating in a decision that was coming for a while.... But we really believe that the multiple-store model that we had become and that had worked so well for us in the 1980s and 1990s, is not feasible anymore."

While the closing of Harry W. Schwartz's four bookstores is sad news, there is some good news in that two of the locations will remain open. Daniel Goldin, presently Schwartz general manager, will open the Boswell Book Company at Schwartz's current Downer Avenue location, and Lanora Hurley, manager of Schwartz's Mequon store, will open the Next Chapter Bookshop at that location.

"My idea for the store is for it to take the best of the Shorewood location and the best of the Downer Avenue location -- both had specialties and both had great services," Goldin told BTW. "We're going to continue traditions from both stores and, of course, start new ones." For one, Goldin will bring Shorewood's art wall to the Downer Avenue store. "I'm planning to find a space for that. I know so many artists, I think I can fill that wall for three years."

Hurley said she is sad to see Schwartz close, but excited about the prospect of running her own indie bookstore. "I'm a ball of mixed emotions," she said. "I loved working for Schwartz. Working in a bookstore had been a dream of mine since I was a little girl. There was such an outpouring from customers, thanking me for keeping an independent in the community."

Hurley hopes to have the Next Chapter open in the first week of April; Goldin wants to have Boswell's open as soon after March 31 as is possible.

While the economic climate is daunting, both booksellers told BTW that they have plenty of ideas for their new ventures.

"I have all kinds of ideas," Hurley said. "And Schwartz did a lot of things very well, so there's no reason to throw out the model." She noted that the store may increase its technological presence via Facebook and Twitter "to attract younger readers," and discussed the idea of bringing in local professors to teach classes at the store. "We had a professor teach a class where people paid a tuition fee. It was four nights for four weeks and it did very well."

"I'm hoping to be very lean and very flexible," said Goldin. "A bookstore has to adjust to new technology and new revenue streams.... I have tons of ideas. I have a big 'Idea' file. I love traveling around to bookstores to see the things they do, I just have to figure out which ideas will be feasible. A lot of the changes will be based on moving from a multi- to a single-store location. You have economies of scale with a multi-store model, but with a single store, you have the ability to react [to market changes] a little better." --David Grogan