Walk A Crooked Mile Bookstore Closing??
Dear Friends,
Walk a Crooked Mile Books might have to close it doors soon. We have been open for fifteen years. Our knees have and backs have aged through those years but we hoped to stay open a few more. But the recent economic situation has led to mounting debts to our landlord Septa and to the IRS for employee withholding taxes. If these are unpaid, we will have to close.
We started the shop with a roomful of books in December of 1994 and accrued a fair amount of debt to open it up and, unfortunately, we still have that debt. I continued to teach for about 10 years to support the shop as it grew. About 5 years ago I left teaching and worked full time in the shop and it continued to grow and was barely supporting my partner Cynthia and I over the last few years. You, our customers and friends have been very supportive, buying our books, telling your friends about us, and donating boxes and boxes of books. Many of those books have been recycled and sold in the shop. Many of them have gone to individuals in the community through our overflowing free pile. Almost 9,000 books have been shipped to Korea to build a University library there.
When I opened the shop, I wanted to be a bookseller but I also wanted to be a community builder and I’m proud that Walk a Crooked Mile Books has become a part of the warp and woof of Mount Airy. We started a free concert series nearly ten years ago and have had countless wonderful evenings of music outside the shop. We have sponsored the Umpteenth Mount Airy Yard Sale for umpteenth plus Saturdays. We’ve seen countless young babies grow to toddlers who come to watch the train come in, and then start finding books to read in our $1 kid’s books, and they are now in High School. We’ve served coffee and tea to thousands of you and you have let us into your lives. We are grateful for all of this.
If we have to close, we don’t want to do so without letting you know our situation. We don’t need more book donations right now. In fact, we have an embargo on incoming books till at least January 2010. WE DO NEED TO SELL MORE BOOKS AND FIND MORE REGULAR BOOK BUYERS. We’ll raise the price of some of our offerings with the hope that this will help but we really hope to hear from you in the way of an increase in your shopping with us. Perhaps you could also buy Gift Certificates or books as holiday presents as ways of bringing us more customers.
These are tough times and many of you are also hurting and we understand. If it is time to close, we’ll accept that and find other ways to support ourselves and participate in the community.
Thanks Greg Williams and Cynthia Potter Walk a Crooked Mile Books
