As downtown Los Angeles's "landscape continues to evolve, one beautiful and massive bookstore has come to serve as a thriving cultural heart of the neighborhood," LAist observed in featuring a photo collection exploring the Last Bookstore and an interview with owner Josh Spencer. Among our favorite exchanges:
How does the space inform the experience for visitors and how does the artwork play into that?
It's a 100-year-old bank with vaults, huge pillars, old tile floors, and so forth. We tried to design around that to create a nostalgic feel. The artwork is meant to stimulate the imagination and creative juices, just like the books much of it is made from.
What challenges have you faced over the years of developing and running the bookstore?
The usual... staffing issues, cash flow, inventory systems, parking, point of sale headaches, etc. Tedious retail business challenges. Everything is a challenge! Being downtown we deal with a crazy amount of shop-lifting and vandalism and acts of craziness from some street people, which costs us thousands of dollars a month. But each challenge is gratifying in its own way and helps me and my staff grow as human beings who can treat every fellow human with dignity and do anything we put our minds to.
Do you think one day you may be the very last bookstore left or is there still hope for others?
Tons of new bookstores are opening all over America, so our name has definitely proved to be tongue-in-cheek for now. For anyone who loves books more than money, there's always hope.
