4B - Thursday, September 8, 2011

The Michigan Daily - (nichigandaily.com

Reminiscing about a beloved bookstore


Former employees and
frequent customers
make final store visits
By PROMA KHOSLA
Daily TV/New Media
It seems dispiriting to think that the
incoming freshman class and future
generations of students at the Univer-
sity will not have Borders bookstore on
their campus. To those of us who have
several years in Ann Arbor under our
belts, there is no question downtown
will feel incomplete without the sprawl-
ing bookstore that was the best place to
study, meet or just comfortably wander
around for hours.
As Borders faces its final days, nostal-
gia pervades the air surrounding 612 E.
Liberty St. It's hard for students, faculty
and Ann Arbor retailers to pass those
enormous telltale clearance signs with-
out thinking about what the bookstore

has meant over the past few decades.
Hal Brannan worked with Borders
for over 20 years, the last 13 of which
were at store No. 1, the downtown Ann
Arbor location.
Among Brannan's early memories
with the company is receiving his first
profit-sharing check from the Borders
brothers. At the time, in the '80s, Tom
and Louis Borders were sharing their
business profits with employees via pay-
check since the company was still small.
The Borders brothers first opened Bor-
ders Book Shop in Ann Arbor in 1971,
but in the following decades it would
become part of Kmart Corporation and
would include Waldenbooks and anoth-
er bookstore chain called Brentano's.
"That was like, 'oh my gosh,' " Bran-
nan said, remembering that first prof-
it-sharing check. "I was part of the
Borders family. That was when I felt I'd
latched onto something incredible."
Brannan fostered a true sense of com-
munity with his coworkers in every-
thing from holiday parties to forming a

union in the early 2000s.
"I always tried to be fair and open
and honest," he explained. "The kind of
people that work for Borders responded
well to that, so I was able to continue
working at Borders until I could see that
it was time to ... say goodbye."
It was that very sense of community
that drew Luis Paez, a Borders employee
of 11 years, to the Ann Arbor store.
"The atmosphere was quite energiz-
ing," Paez said. "I wanted to work at the
base of the corporation, particularly at
store No. 1, (the store) beinga nerve here
in Ann Arbor of social, economic and
intellectual life."
For Andrea Graef, storeowner of This
& That on E. Liberty St., Borders repre-
sented a constant.
"One of the reasons I picked this spot
(for the store) was because Borders was
across the street from me," she said. "I
use Borders as a place to relax, walk
around and look at books."
She added: "They had the authors
come in and you could talk to them
about their books or the events that
they would hold over there, or just sit on
the floor and read a story to your child
or grandchild, you know, go in there
and introduce them to books. I've been
taking my little granddaughter. At six
months old we started her, sitting on
the floor reading a book ... she's almost
four."
On a larger scale, this reflects Graef's
sadness over the state of the book indus-
try.
"I for one am not into the electronic
book," she said. "I like to hold books, I
like to hold newspapers. Maybe it's old
school, but that's the way I want it. I
want to go and buy books or get them
from the library. I think of my grand-
daughter and I think, what's her life
going to be like if everything goes to
electronic?"
Graef believes Borders was unique as
a local company that grew into a nation-
al corporation, but that it will be espe-
cially missed in its Ann Arbor home as a
pivotal feature of daily life.
"It's the biggest anchor we have
downtown here," she said. "Already I
can see the changes in the neighbor-
hood. The business is down ... at night

01

Borders Books and Music will be missed by its employees and loyal customers.

because a lot of people used to be in
there. I'm open until 10 so I've seen a
drastic decrease already."
Store No.1 also played host to a vari-
ety of celebrities and authors, including
comedian John Hodgman, actor John
Travolta and musicians John Mayer and
James Taylor.
"Borders played ... a vital role in this
area, not just to the Ann Arbor commu-
nity but to the surrounding towns and
cities, I would say to Southeast Michi-
gan," Paez said. "It's a center for gath-
ering and exchanging ideas about the
literature, whether that was journals or
magazines or newspapers or books or
any other kind of media."
Paez is not only a Borders employee,
but a historian now working on a book
about the store and its history. For him,
it was an "engrossing experience" to
work at store No. 1 and get to know peo-
ple and groups within the corporation.
He feels the impact of Borders ulti-
mately lies in these communities and
the lives it has touched across genera-
tions.
"It's a huge hole in people's lives,
I think it will be," Graef said. "I think

people don't realize it yet because the
door hasn't quite closed, butI think they
will.
"It was a place where you could go
and lose yourself. Even before the cafe
was there and you sat down and had a
cup of coffee or something ... you could
just go in there and shut out the rest of
the world and lose yourself in a wonder-
ful place."
Brannan also enjoyed the distinct
world within the store.
"I remember a lot of good discussion
with customers about current books
and current events, and how rapidlythe 6
book world was able to produce books
on what was going on," Brannan said.
As uncertain as things look in the
world of book retail, Brennan knows the
impact of Borders is unquestionable.
"Borders has put an awful lot of books
into people's homes," he said. "That'll be
a lasting legacy; our books in people's
houses that will get handed down to
generations or taken to used book deal-
ers and read again by somebody else.
People are going tobe finding their Bor-
ders bookmarks and receipts and books
long into the future."

The first Borders store, on Liberty St., was an Ann Arbor landmark since 1971.

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