— By Kevin Montgomery (@kevinmonty) |
When Adobe Books' landlord raised the 25-year-old bookshop's rent from $4,500 to $6,000 last spring, the shop and the community it serves rallied for its future. Authors Stephen Elliott, Rebecca Solnit, Michelle Tea, and musicians The Dodos held in-store fundraisers that saw overflow crowds spill out into the street. Over 600 people donated to an Indiegogo fundraising campaign to save Adobe and create a co-op to manage it. Just last week the fundraiser successfully raised $60,000, giving the shop at least a year of rent money.
“It's obvious the community supports us,” Liz, one of Adobe's employees, told me this morning as she sorted a box of yellowing Playboys.
But their landlord was less inspired by the effort. They responded by further raising the shop's rent to $8,000 and demanding improvements be made to the space.
“We cleaned up everything, reorganized the space, even painted behind bookcases… spots that haven't needed to be painted since forever.”
Unfortunately that hasn't been enough for the landlord—they have decided they want Adobe out. And they're being emboldened by a fashion retailer valued at $2.3 billion and traded on the New York Stock Exchange.
According to public records, Fifth & Pacific Companies Inc.—better known by their former name, Liz Claiborne Inc.—has been eying Adobe's storefront at 3166 16th Street since at least July 30th of last year, when Melissa Xides, the self-described “co-leader” of Fifth & Pacific's upscale Jack Spade label, wrote to the San Francisco Planning Department asking if the company fell into the city's “formula retail” category.
“I am writing on behalf of the fashion retailer Jack Spade to request a Letter of Determination regarding a proposed retail store that Jack Spade is pursuing on 16th Street in the Valencia Street NC district,” the letter began. “Jack Spade designs men’s bags, accessories and apparel that blend functionality and style. Jack Spade is based in New York City and only has seven stores in the United States. We are not a Formula Retail store and are asking for confirmation of this from the Planning Department.”
“Jack Spade stores operate more like a traditional haberdashery with a focus on customer service and relationships with our clients and community… direct community outreach is very important to the Jack Spade brand team.”
While the Planning Department later agreed Jack Spade wasn't formula retail, citing their relative independence from their monied parent company, the business has been remarkably secretive about their plans. They have held no public meetings about their move into the Mission District, the job ads for the soon-to-be-opened store do not disclose the neighborhood it will be located in, and the staff of Adobe has been kept in the dark from their landlord (Liz told us she knew “nothing” about Jack Spade's intentions). Another source told us that representatives from Jack Spade allegedly went into neighboring retailer Idol Vintage “without warning” and “literally measured the store with a tape measurer” with future expansions in mind.
With Jack Spade's deep pockets giving Adobe's landlord unmatchable financial leverage over the small used bookstore, getting pushed out of their home since 1988 is almost certain. “It just doesn't make sense to run a bookshop [when paying] $8,000 a month in rent,” Liz conceded, acknowledging the shop is bracing for a forced relocation.
“There's just no way.”
Representatives for Jack Spade could not be reached for comment.
Comments (109)
Fuck it all
Godammit. this town is hemorrhaging cool.
Here’s some community outreach: stay out of SF.
What would it cost, in dollars & cents for Adobe to move to another location somewhere along 16th Street? Clearly it has a passionate following of people who know how valuable such a bookstore is to the community, and it would get them away from the landlord’s implacable greed.
Then, when greedy asshole rents the space out to Claiborne, the Mission retaliates with a full-bore boycott of their crap.
FFS, seriously? This is why the community is raising money, to try to compete with Jack Spade? How can we win this with fundraising?
There should be a way to evict shitty landlords.
Fuck - do we all agree on something for once? This could be a first.
“Representatives for Jack Spade could not be reached for comment.” - Of course not; they were busy evicting widows and orphans.
Oh give me a break. 6k/mo is 1980’s prices. Remember this: whenever you play the VICTIM CARD, another child is given a HAIRLIP and photographed for an anti-Muslim Muni bus ad.
you sir are a sad excuse
Your sarcasm and irreverance do nothing to solve any problems. Do everyone a favor and move somewhere that already has the same stores as everywhere else- it’s obvious that’s what you want.
You’re an idiot.
I don’t tend to get too sad about for-profit venture one losing to for-profit venture two, but since so many of you seem to find some sort of artisanal-authenticity value in small retail, where were you all when Forest Books - a block away - was forced out of the neighborhood? Straight up kicked out by a rent increase, without a peep heard from anyone. And it was a real live bookstore, with stock organized in a useful way (i.e., not by binding color). It actually tried to be a functional business, helping people find the books they sought. Why gnash our teeth and rend our garments over a store that didn’t even *try* to be a viable business? Yeah, I went to events there, and even read a poem or two of my own (or did I have a guitar with me? I can’t remember), but jesus, it’s just a space. I think too many people romanticize - even fetishize - their formative experiences in particular spaces.
You grizzled mission sir are a sad truth teller
Thanks. Why offer a constructive solution and pass up the opportunity to reprimand and grouse, eh?
I thought there was a lot of gnashing of teeth over Forrest Books. I think its demise happened more suddenly, though, and so there wasn’t the time to organize indiegogo campaigns and fundraiser-readings in the space, etc. Also, the loss of Forrest Books has made the imminent loss of Adobe all the more painful, as it will be the last used book store in the area (although I think Dog Eared books does have some used books amongst its regular stock). So people are getting ore vocal about it.
Adobe Books has been teetering on the edge for years; Forrest Books’ departure was much more sudden. I don’t think it’s that people didn’t care so much as they didn’t have time to react.
Myself and other Adobe Books co-op members reached out to Forest Books to help them and to collaborate on this effort. They did not seem interested. The color installation was only for awhile. We are trying to be a viable business, by switching up our business model. As for spaces just being spaces, everyone that I know romanticizes spaces. Its human nature. Thought about the home you grew up in lately?
romanticizing a space you don’t control (own) usually leads to heartbreak.
The landlord that evicted Forest Books was none other than local Mission nonprofit Mission Housing.
Fuck you, Liz Claiborne. Fuck. You.
hopefully the mission of yours will do help you sir. . so sad…
Let’s get ready to rumble. This formula yuppie shit destroying SF culture has got to stop. Meet it head on, people.
It’s over, Babe. It won’t stop until the next dot-com crash.
It you hipster jag-offs who buy Jack Spade man bags that are to blame.
Uh, say what you will about hipsters, but they aren’t the ones buying $85 crewneck t-shirts–that’s the burgeoning breed of immaculate artisanal assholes.
“…burgeoning breed of immaculate artisanal assholes”
you, sir, are a wordsmith
Wait, we’re against certain kind of shirt collars now? I just got used to the horizontal stripes good, vertical stripes bad.
Yer missing the point.
THANK YOU. So sick of reading comments like “those stupid hipsters and their $100 haircuts and NOPA lunches”
what they mean to say is “those stupid tech yuppies.” The so-called hipsters are the ones serving their food and cutting their hair.
$85 v-neck shirts: totally ok
also, who is the landlord? Shouldn’t they be called out? It’s not just Liz Claiborne who’s to blame for this. And when will we have rent control for businesses in this city??
FYI, the California state constitution includes provisions that BAN local counties like SF from imposing any sort of controls on commercial rent. This was passed just after Berkeley implemented their own commercial rent control…to avoid bullshit like this that stems from greedy landlords and greedy businesspeople (and citizen residents too busy arguing amongst themselves about who is less to blame to actually get together and politically battle these interests).
2nd FYI there is an emerging effort to unite those concerned with a San Francisco bereft of cultural, ethnic, economic diversity. It’s called “Mission Alliance to Cultivate Home” (MATCH) and you can check it out at http://www.facebook.com/groups/152759251556264/?fref=ts
More than one way to skin a cat.
Why should landlords be forced to rent their property to someone who will only pay substantially below market rate? Adobe owners acknowledged they were paying way below market rate and that’s why they were looking to transform the business.
No one gave a shit when the librería cristiana closed down to make way for a local boutique.
Which is not to say that LC isn’t being a douchebag the way they’re handling things. But what if it was a local fashion retailer opening their first store there? I bet many of you would feel the same way.
Oh, and when is the last time you actually bought something at Adobe Books? Put your money where you mouth is.
Boo! Liz Claiborne
Maybe they should flip the floorplan and be an art gallery/performance space with a tiny bookshop in the back.
Andrew, the owner, has said it was a mistake to not buy the building when it was in a ‘bad’ neighborhood. That’s the lesson here.
Maybe partner with another group and apply the $60K to the downpayment on a property in Excelsior, Bayview or Oakland.
If you want a long-term success for your business, you need to own your real estate.
Commercial community land trusts.
I hope Jack Spade has a shovel for the human feces they’ll have to clean off the sidewalk in front of the store. (Not because I’m encouraging it. I’m just saying it’s a regular occurrence here. Hope that fits in with their corporate branding somehow.)
Heap of shame on the local architecture firm doing the dirty work, Freebairn, Smith & Crane, and their operative Janet Crane. They’re the ones that got the letter of determination from the city planning. Real sickening. There are ways to fight this though, going forward, and I doubt that even the upscale locally-owned boutiques around want a monster like Jack Spade in.
fuck it! mob rules!
About one hour before I read this post I was reading about Gant opening a shop in Hayes Valley that has the local business district in a lather:
http://hayeswire.com/2013/03/gant-store-opens-in-hayes-valley-despite-me…
At first I thought the HVMA were just a bunch of whiny assholes (which they pretty much are anyway). Half of the shops on that strip are stocked with overpriced shit and some new places have opened very recently - Aether - are fancy ass boutiques that I’d never frequent.
Yet Gant, like Jack Spade, has only 8 shops in the US (now 2 on the West Coast) and they are a part of a European corporate entity so they’ve got cash. And overpriced pretty clothes for young skinny rich people.
Unlike Jack Spade I don’t believe Gant participated in forcing a renter out of a space. There are a number of shops in HV that rotate tenants regularly - I assume because they don’t sell enough to pay the rent.
How can a small bookshop make enough cash to pay $4500 / month rent anyway? Not even major bookstore chains are surviving.
This topic creates conflict for me.
Build it and watch it burn to the fucking ground.
The neighbors will love you for that.
So they can demolish the whole row of low slung storefronts along the north side of that block of 16th and erect Yet Another Craptacular Condo?
Jack Spade has really nice bags.
I would not be surprised if it caught fire
BRO! KEV SUP MAN HOW YOU BEEN BRO. HAVING SEEN YOU AT BROLORES PARK IN A BIT. JUST STOPPED BY TO SAY STARBOX IS COMING BRO. HEARD THEYRE LOOKIN AT VALENCIA.
“The mission is really cool. Let’s all move there and make it shitty and boring!”
Nicely Done.
it’s so awesome we have a boom in advertising platform businesses that place a premium on “Number of users” and “vague promises of being bought by google later on” funded by VC that ends up usually meaning that they all go out of business anyway to kick out the last few pieces of anything not an import from fucking NYC and their bullshit in the meantime and when the bust happens, we end up with nothing.
DON’T CALL IT “TECH” BECAUSE IT IS NOT “TECH” IT“S ADVERTISING.
FUCK YOUR ALGORITHMS!
This man knows our secrets.
Maybe if Jack Spade won’t answer his phone he’ll answer to a boycott. How does bullying your way into a neighborhood make good publicity?
Bomb the Liz Claireborne and Jack Spade social media pages!
https://www.facebook.com/jackspadeny
https://twitter.com/jackspadeny
http://jackspadeny.tumblr.com/
Hell, hit up the Liz Claireborne ones too while you’re at it. Digital revolt seem to be the best way to get press these days.
Also, doesn’t San Francisco have really strong community laws regarding which businesses can move in? I remember a few years back, community members spoke up at the planning meeting and successfully denied American Apparel a shop in the Mission.
Finding a new storefront looks to be in the cards, but I’d still fight against any corporate hogs pushing into where they are not wanted, or needed.
i am an artist and community activist born and raised in the bay area. this kind of shit is going to stop. i fucking dare them to put a liz claiborne whateverthefuck in the adobe books building, i’ll throw a brick thru their window every fucking night. sf will NOT FUCKING STAND FOR THIS.
Probly should not have included the link before you threatened violence, genius.
love your comix, thanx
you are a fucking loser piece of shit who destroys personal property. throw it threw your own window asshole.
and since when is the mission known a ‘the NC valencia district’? fuck me gently with a chainsaw.
The planning department defines Neighborhood Commercial Districts (NCD). The area around Valencia Street is one of them. The official name is “Valencia Street NCD”.
Maybe Hayes Valley but not Valencia. Fuck that shit.
They tried to rent the space next to Self Edge already but the landlord said “no way” so the space is still available.
Remember when Self Edge was Leather Tongue Video?!
Most of these posters haven’t been here long enough to remember Leather Tongue. You can still wee the sign at Bender’s though.
i almost died trying to take that sign off the side of my building. Took 6 hours and five guys to pry it off the wall and move it to Benders.
We don’t need $300 jeans at Benders.
You said “posters” but I think you meant “posers”.
Oh, hell yes. I spent so much time at that place, I was practically an employee. Bret, the counter-man who eventually became the owner, is one of my oldest and dearest friends. When Leather Tongue died, a big part of me died with it.
Speaking of real estate changes. How about switching the space on this blog by bring the comments to the top, and moving dying RSS below. The comments are some of best parts of this blog. snarkiness and all.
We have a redesign that we’re been hoping to launch “in a month or so” for the past year. But seriously, it’s almost done! And it pretty radically reorganizes this site.
Yes, yes – we all hate how the ancient hoary institutions of SF seem to pass away from us on a daily basis. But, of course, who wants to live in a city THAT NEVER F**KING CHANGES? Honestly people - Adobe Books is a dirty, poorly run, poorly organized excuse for a decent bookstore. You know why it’s closing? Because NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE SHOP THERE. You know why that is? Because it’s a dirty, poorly run, poorly organized excuse for a decent bookstore in an era when people are buying their reading materials digitally. I’m sorry, but it’s just the way things are. Do bad business owners simply never get punished for failing to provide a needed service for people in the neighborhood? Do we provide public assistance ad nauseum for failing business? I know – we don’t want to turn into Walnut Creek. I get it. But SF will never be Walnut Creek because SF does not and never will be able to offer what WC denizens want, which are McMansions built on huge lots and Costcos with enormous parking lots and wide boulevards connecting the suburbanites with their home/work/shopping destinations. Trust a little change. People have been complaining about SF’s loss of itself for decades now and you know what? It still hasn’t come to pass.
Adobe might be a mediocre used bookstore, but I’ve bought self-published writing there and it’s art shows can be some of the best in the city.
I’m not afraid of sf becoming like walnut creek, I’m afraid of it becoming like Manhattan- nearly unrecognizable and lacking character.
You’re afraid SF might become more like Manhattan - a world class city for publishing and art?
Alan Ginsberg, Philip K. Dick, Mark Twain, Tales of the City, Kathy Acker, Dodie Bellamie… There is already one Manhattan, you can’t replace San Francisco once it’s gone. That’s problem being discussed.
Yes, Manhattan has world class creative industries, but it feels sterile these days compared to the past.
Same thing is happening, has happened in New York’s Village and lower east side. Independent business’ being squeezed out by mega-stores like Whole Foods. It’s the worst of Manhattan; thanks to Bloomberg.
I grew up near NYC, spent a lot of time there and go back a few times a year. The reason I moved 3000 miles away is because San Francisco is San Francisco and not New York. This place is unique and doesn’t need to be validated by becoming like anywhere but here.
The rent increase has nothing to do with how well or poorly Adobe was being operated. I’m baffled that you would somehow assume there’s a connection between these two.
True, the rent is not increasing because it is poorly run. However, if it was well run and making money, it could afford the higher rent.
That’s not necessarily true.
I hate gentrification! That is, the gentrification that occurs after I’ve moved to a neighborhood. Everything that happened before I got here, and the Mexican family that was priced out of their/my apartment can go kick rocks
Also, this is one of the crappiest small bookstores around. We aren’t losing agem here. That is of course if you can call a dying industry a gem. Maybe we can go bail out a record store, or a failing newspaper, or a small video rental store.
You must be really young.
I’m not a math major, but I count thirteen Jack Spade locations, ten of them in the U.S.
http://www.jackspade.com/on/demandware.store/Sites-Jack-Site/default/Sto…
It takes twelve US locations to be considered “formula retail”.
Not the case. From the Planning Department’s Letter of Intention:
“Jack Spade has only seven retail stores in the United States and cannot be considered a Formula Retail establishment under Planning Code Section 703.3, at this time.
“Please be advised that if, in the future, Jack Spade reaches the threshold of eleven stores, at that time Jack Spade will be considered a formula retail use. “
Either their “Affidavit For Formula Retail Establishments” is out of date or their letter was incorrect: http://www.sf-planning.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=8313 (see the bottom of page 2).
Bubble. The bubble will burst and Adobe will still be here. Why? Because many of us have lived through bubbles before and we’re learning. So support Adobe to see how it’s done, cause they’re making it up as they do it.
I was sad to see Forest Books closed. I found some books there accidentally, by just looking round, that I wouldn’t have found on line and haven’t seen anywhere else. I hope they re-open…
Forest Books already reopened: http://www.yelp.com/biz/forest-books-san-francisco-2
Right on!
We lost Fields Books in February on Polk Street. :( An institution since 1932.
http://tenderlife.tumblr.com/post/39549054461/sad-news-tenders-another-i…
No one cares about all the CD stores we lost.
The Mission is going to have these multi-store retailers, like Jack Spade, come in saying they’re not Formula Retail stores but, they have every intention of becoming one, AFTER they open a location in the Mission. It happened on Fillmore Street, which is essentially now a high-end mall. Check out this article: http://newfillmore.com/2013/03/03/oska-stirs-chain-store-fight-on-fillmore/
If the Planning Commission hasn’t learned from Fillmore Street then it’s either being willfully ignorant or, another guess, folks on the Commission on being paid off by these Formula Retail stores.
After the coming dot com 2.0 bust and all the Grou-Pawns go back home, San Francisco’s small/family businesses will still be gone forever and so will our sustainable economy. Whatever, slash and burn assholes.
You could have at least picked a company that is based out of the Bay Area to sub-portmanteau.
When was the last time any of you actually bought a book at Adobe? I belive the last time I was in there was about 1994, and they had the same 17 softcover editions of The Odyssey, Steppenwolf, The Stranger, and Despair they had on my prvious visit. Books for surly teenagers to read in coffee shops, hoping to be noticed. The same books one finds everywhere. The shop seemed stagnant long before the Amazon Effect started killing off indie bookstores like cancer.
If you’re going to run a business, run it. Whether it appeals to you or not, you need to actively compete against other businesses by making your place unique and exploiting a niche. Adobe failed to do that. A fundraiser to pay the rent? That’s a reward for making a half-assed effort as a businessperson. How about creating a business plan that shows how you’re going to get folks through the door to buy books, then seeking out community investment to make Adobe really great, rather than accepting a bailout to keep it on life support so people can look admiringly at it as they walk past on their way to spend money elsewhere.
Anybody remember the Cheap Art Store on Divisadero/Fell? It sold local art at dirt-cheap prices in an unpretentious, non-gallery-froufrou setting. Good idea, good niche, plenty of opportunity to directly benefit the community. It failed because although people liked the idea, nobody actually bought anything. And that’s what’s happening here. People like the idea of indie bookstores, but don’t actually support them until they’re teetering on the brink, at which point they have a bleeding-heart festival so the store can struggle along as a sort of monument to the past that never was.
TL;DR: support good local businesses by buying stuff. Make mediocre local businesses better or let them fail.
Well I and others bought books there frequently, but you’re missing the point. It wasn’t a mediocre bookstore, it was a hugely influential bookstore that helped launch the careers of many, many, writers, and poets and other kinds of artists (music / painting) by providing them space to practice their craft and get better and more secure and confident in their voice.
What is being mourned is not Adobe as a place to buy the latest Nelson DeMille, because Amazon always kicks any brick and mortar’s ass, but the community spot where you could see a future talent blossom. It was more than just a space for takers, it was also a space for creators, the actual creative class that makes a city so vibrant. And the people like me who just support those efforts.
But whatever. Free market gonna free market.
Got a store? Run the store. Otherwise, start a non-profit.
Hasn’t 826 Valencia taken up that torch now? Stuff moves around. Things change. Doesn’t mean that there won’t be any more spaces for writers. Maybe Adobe can reopen on lower 24th. There are still a lot of dead retails spaces there.
Things do change, but as point of fact, no 826 does not do that. Bird and Beckett does, but mostly young new voices are in…..Oakland. Which is fine. If the community doesn’t want these spaces we won’t have them. But it’s still a shame. From where I sit.
find out where that landlord lives and make it personal…
Let them know that greed is very unpopular.
Adobe Books is beautiful – one of the remaining stores with a real bohemian look and feel to it. I would hate to see it replaced by some sterile, upscale purveyor of expensive luggage.
That being said, I don’t blame the landlord. If he/she is asking $8000 a month for the bookstore to stay, then obviously Jack Spade is willing to pay at least that much. The $2000/month difference between $6000 and $8000 is $24,000 a year.
Would you take a $24,000 a year pay cut in exchange for keeping your neighborhood funkier and less commercialized, if the workload for you was going to be essentially the same either way?
If you would, and you have the kind of money where you can afford to make $24,000/year less than you otherwise could, in dedication to your aesthetic sense of beauty, justice, and so on, then we may have an easy solution to this problem. Just buy $24,000 in Adobe Books gift certificates for Christmas this year, and promise them you’ll do the same next year in perpetuity or until the economy crashes and rents come down.
But in all likelihood you don’t have the money to do that, and wouldn’t do it if you did. If you would do it, that might well be why you *can’t* do it – because you haven’t lived a money-accumulating lifestyle that would enable you to step in with such a gesture. Nothing wrong with that, but it may mean that from the landlord’s perspective you’re all talk and no walk if you’re asking him/her to make the sacrifice.
The real problem here is that efforts to save businesses like Adobe Books under the present arrangement are basically fighting against the law of supply and demand and against market incentives, which is like trying to keep water from flowing downhill.
Pursuing this metaphor a bit further, the left’s approach to this dilemma is basically to build dams. Since they don’t have the political power to build the equivalent of a massive Three Gorges dam by banning all chain stores from SF (which would be a huge disruption of the economy and people’s lives just as the real Three Gorges dam is a huge disruption to the environment and the people who live in that region of China), they seek to build a series of small dams by preventing the market from functioning, one development, one petition, one government hearing at a time.
Sometimes the dams get built, and sometimes they don’t, but the war is slowly being lost. San Francisco is clearly becoming more gentrified and less alternative, and the obvious corollary to this is that it is becoming more politically conservative and less hospitable to leftist values.
The irony is that the left is doing this to themselves with anti-development policies. The water is going to go downhill, sooner or later, one way or another. Simply trying to prevent the market from functioning is a losing battle and will ultimately result in San Francisco losing the cool qualities that have long characterized the city.
But there is another way. Instead of fighting the laws of nature, we could choose to unleash market forces in a way that would favor poor people, artists, mom-and-pop businesses, the counterculture, and so on. Sound impossible? It’s not. But it would take some radical changes, and mean abandoning the statism that has been the left’s flawed weapon-of-choice in the fight to keep the city cool and funky.
Here’s a short outline of some of the changes that could make the city safe for places like Adobe Books to thrive – maybe not that particular bookstore in that particular space if monied interests want it too badly, but certainly changes that would allow it and similar home-grown establishments to thrive.
• Get rid of zoning laws. Let people run businesses out of their homes, live in the back of their workplaces, turn industrial spaces into residential spaces and vice-versa, without any government bureaucracy, permit fees, or other red tape.
• Let anyone sell their stuff on the sidewalks or other public spaces without a permit. Call it Occupy 2.0.
• Eliminate the sales tax and other regressive government takings such as building inspection fees that fall hardest on small businesses.
• Allow property parcels to be subdivided into parcels as small as an owner wishes, and sold piecemeal. This would lower the economic barriers to becoming a land owner and produce lots of smaller, more affordable venues for businesses, community, and the arts.
• Trim the excessive rules and regulations from building codes so that existing spaces could be more readily modified and configured to get the most effective use out of these subdivided parcels.
• Allow not just food trucks, but all kinds of vehicle-based retail sales. Cut the red tape and permit expenses currently associated with such. And get rid of the laws against people sleeping in their vehicles, and provide more places for people to be able to park for longer periods at a stretch without fearing the street cleaning/towing/ticketing extortion operation (this would also help the environment by reducing the need for people to be continually and unnecessarily moving their vehicles).
Any of the above changes taken individually would help. Implementing the entire list would produce a countercultural entrepreneurial renaissance the likes of which has never been seen. No longer would it take tens of thousands of dollars to go into business, let alone afford your own space for retail or manufacturing. The door would be open for every Burning Man theme camp, every group of friends with a cool idea, to be able to realize that dream and have a place of their own right here in the city. Young people, artistic people, the kind of people who make a city vibrant and diverse, would flock back to San Francisco.
The chain stores could still have their big, sterile spaces, but with all the micro-businesses sprouting up around them and in the streets, who would care? The city by the bay would be fun and exciting again.
We can embrace the kind of market revolution that will turn the tables on the soulless, corporate businesses by allowing them to be out-competed by small, nimble, artistic and dynamic alternatives, or we can keep the Big Government status quo that is slowly killing us, winning a battle here and there while slowly losing the war.
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Interesting post! The current bureaucratic system favors the large-scale, corporate process. Creative entrepreneurs and artists often must defy the rigid system to realize new ideas. The bureaucrats then codify the best ideas and limit access to well connected, monied interests.
The mission hasn’t been hip for at least 2 decades now, let the spadettes have it
Dear Friends of Adobe,
Despite completing a successful fund raising campaign, our attempts to negotiate a new lease with the landlord have not reached a conclusion that allows us to stay in our 16th Street location. Unfortunately, we have received notice that by June 15th, we must leave our home of almost 25 years. The new tenant may or may not be Jack Spade - we can’t officially confirm.
San Francisco, the Mission, and 16th Street are in a constant state of flux and growth. We must deal with this financial and cultural reality as it is. Adobe though is much more than the storefront: it is a community, an experience, a gallery, a living room, a conversation, and a new friend (plus a fantastic place to buy great used books!).
When our core Adobe group began meeting almost a year ago, our ultimate goal became our long-term survival. In order to survive we must move on. Currently, we are working with a commercial broker to identify new spaces that might be a good fit for a new store. We have developed a set of criteria; once we find a place we will move forward. We are optimistic, as well as patient. The funds we raised are in the bank. They will be used to keep the life and culture of Adobe alive.
We will keep you posted as to our progress. If you see a space under 2000 square feet.. give us a shout!
Keep the faith. We love you.
Adobe Books