“It’s really a consequence of the age,” said Howard Gersten, who has owned the bookstore with his wife for almost 30 years. Now in their 70s, the couple is ready to retire. They solicited potential buyers earlier this year, but no one bit. A liquidation sale of 50-percent off everything in the store began on Monday.
Amherst College alumnus Paul French ’26 started The Jeffrey Amherst Bookstore in 1937; the Gerstens, who took the helm in 1978, are the store’s third owners.
When the Gerstens took over, explained Professor of Anthropology Lawrence Babb, downtown Amherst had a markedly different feel. With a supermarket, two hardware stores and two shoe stores, downtown Amherst primarily served families, while today’s downtown caters to students. “The Jeffrey Amherst Bookstore is one of the last remnants of the older era,” Babb said, identifying A.J. Hastings as another old, important anchor of the downtown.
The closing of the bookstore inevitably will have consequences for the Amherst community, as the Pioneer Valley was heralded as “arguably the most author-saturated, book-cherishing, literature-celebrating place in the nation” by The New York Times last year. Fellow independent bookstore owner Mark Wootton, of Amherst Books, explained, “It’s a big blow to that business and for the Amherst community. It will be an adjustment—the Gerstens have been there for so long and have had relationships with many professors.”
Babb also expressed much praise for the Gerstens. “They always did so honorably, and always did their best to charge reasonable prices,” he said. “They are highly respected and well-liked in the Amherst community; I really regret the demise of the Jeffrey Amherst Bookstore, although luckily, we’re blessed with another very good bookshop in the community.”
Wootton expects that some of Jeffrey Amherst Bookstore’s textbook business will go to his bookstore and to Food for Thought, the third independent bookstore in town.
Wootton noted that Amherst’s independent bookstores rely on the local colleges’ textbook business, but recognized the changing climate for bookstores in the age of the Internet and online stores such as Amazon.com. “The real change is about the Internet, which takes a lot of business away from local businesses that have premises to pay rent on,” Wootton explained. “Independent bookstores are good for the town; the changes that the Internet is bringing are hard on bookstores.”
The Jeffrey Amherst Bookstore provided much more than textbooks for college students. Babb noted the exceptional children’s section of the bookstore: “The children’s section was incomparable and one of the things we treasured about the bookstore.” Further, many great writers over the years who attended Amherst College returned to Jeffrey Amherst for book signings. Gersten listed Dan Brown ’86, James Merrill ’47, Chris Bohjalian ’82 and Harlan Coben ’84 among the many successful Amherst graduates who have visited the store.
Jeffrey Amherst Bookstore has also boasted a community feeling, particularly notable in contrast to giant chain bookstores such as Barnes and Noble in Hadley. “That kind of bookstore just is not the same as a local bookstore, where you know the owners and everyone who works there,” Babb said.
“A local bookstore is a tremendous resource for the community,” he continued. “It is important for the life of the community of Amherst; it is important to have it and to support it.”