In the earliest days of this site — before I’d made up my mind that this would be a business of any kind, and really was just floundering about in the utter and glorious wreckage that my life was then — I moonlighted at Molly’s Books in the Italian Market. It was a truly great time, in a lot of ways, and inspiration was to be found everywhere — not just in the form of proprietor Molly Russakoff, but also everyone in the entire Molly’s orbit at that point: Molly’s kids, my friend Erik Bader, who got me the job, Matt Schwartz (now Sam Schwartz) who got Bader the job, and most of all, the ragtag group of regulars who wandered into the shop every day. For those of you who are young and broke, I can recommend no greater post-college (or in my case, mid-divorce) Learning Experience than taking a job, any job at all, in the Italian Market. You will witness every kind of person, every kind of human drama and smell every kind of smell. And at Molly’s, they all traipsed through on a daily basis, getting lost in the prodigious stacks and coming up with books either functional (Molly’s did a lot of business in stuff people needed for school and reports) or one of the literally thousands of buried treasures that also resided in the stacks. It was a democratic bookstore for this most democratic of markets. Today comes the news that Molly’s will be closing, and while this is awful news, it’s not exactly shocking; much like the local record store, the local book store has been in decline for a while now. Like the best of these places, though, Molly’s was special. Molly, of course, is a third generation bookseller and that kind of life spent around books was palpable in the store. That the space will be turned over to the Project 360 homeschooling resource is fitting, and a tribute to the store’s always inviting-to-the-curious environment. But I can’t help thinking that as Molly’s goes under, it’s being swept in a tide of independent Philly businesses that catered to our longstanding Freak History; after all, Molly’s Books was the only business I know of that proudly displayed a plaque on its facade that Mikey Wild once lived there. And in my mind, it’s on a list of places I dearly wish would have survived: Third Street Jazz & Rock, Skinz, Zipperhead, Popi, and so on. And those are just the retail spots. Here’s to hoping that those of us who once haunted these places will go on to sow hundreds of seeds that echo the originals.

–Joey Sweeney

Molly’s will have a final sale with 50% off all books from Thursday July 10 through Sunday July 13 and 75% off what remains from Thursday July 17 through Sunday July 20. The shelves will also be for sale.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 1:45 pm.