Idlewild Books, the travel bookstore and language school, is moving its main store from 12 W. 19th St. in the Flatiron section in New York City to the West Village at the intersection of Seventh Avenue South, Perry Street and Waverly Place.
Idlewild will open in the new spot, at 170 Seventh Avenue South, in May and won't vacate its Flatiron space until February 2017. During the interval, Idlewild will sell books at both locations, and begin holding language classes in the new site in May. Idlewild also has a store in Cobble Hill, in Brooklyn.
Owner David Del Vecchio said the new location is "better than what we expected to find when we learned we'd have to move last year." At 1,000 square feet, it's the same size as the W. 19th store but on the ground floor rather than second floor, with "terrific frontage and a better configuration for having two classrooms."
Idlewild started in 2008 as a bookstore specializing in travel books and international literature. After two years, it began offering a few language classes, a program that took off and now includes instruction in French, Spanish, Italian and German at a range of levels. Idlewild has also added foreign language books.