Whatever Happened To ... Village Green Bookstore?

Village Green Bookstore started as a tiny bibliophile haven on Monroe Avenue that grew into a trendsetting regional chain before its demise.

The place started simply enough with a manager whose love of literature far outweighed his business acumen. Within a decade, it had become one of the "main attractions" of funky Monroe and the unostentatious roots sprouted big-business branches, stock offerings and multi-million-dollar sales figures.

Village Green opened in 1972 in a 600-square-foot basement at 766 Monroe Ave., between Rutgers and Dartmouth streets. The owners were high school friends and recent college graduates John Borek, Paul Adams and William Kern. The locale was not yet the trendy district it has become.

"It wasn't the kind of area where people strolled around looking at shops," Meryl Gordon wrote in a 1977 Democrat and Chronicle story. "In addition, the bookstore was hard to find."

But find it, they did — serious readers, at first. Borek said the place "catered to people who were hungry for books." Soon, other appetites would be sated.

Village Green moved upstairs in its flagship building in 1975 and expanded in 1977. The increased visibility attracted more customers. A 1980 expansion included the purchase and demolition of a Texaco gas station next door. The newsstand end of the business exploded; the store that started by selling only the Sunday Democrat and Chronicle and New York Times and several magazines was now offering more than 100 newspapers and 2,400 magazines.

Books still were a staple of the business, but they got shoved behind the rest of the similarly ballooning merchandise line. Deborah Fineblum Raub outlined the multitude of miscellanea in a 1993 Democrat and Chronicle story.

"Before seeing a single book, you notice the gourmet popping corn, strawberry tea … a freezer full of Haagen-Dazs (ice cream), scones and imported chocolate bars, troll book-bags, pairs of cow earrings and an inflatable bagel," she wrote. Adams told Raub: "Everyone sells books, but no one puts it together in quite this package."

Scrantom's, a local bookstore giant profiled in a previous "Whatever Happened To…" story, was on its way out. Village Green represented a new era.

Village Green had coffee bars before they became common in bookstores. Investors took note of the innovative approach. Village Green went public in 1986, and proceeds from sales of stock fueled expansion to other markets, first in Buffalo and then on West Ridge Road in Greece. Village Green licensed the use of its name to "mini-stores" in Fairport and Canandaigua.

The popularity seemed to have no end in sight. Phil Ebersole called Village Green "a place to go and spend time, something like the old-time general store in a small town" in a 1986 news article.

By 1992, the chain added four new stores, including in Syracuse. Financing the growth had become troublesome, and problems followed. Adams, the majority shareholder and company president, sold half his stock in the company to a Rochester financial broker. The broker, in turn, was soon indicted on (and eventually acquitted of) felony charges of swindling a North Carolina developer and using the money to buy the Village Green stock.

A bank cut off credit. The Securities and Exchange Commission began investigating. Adams resigned as president and CEO in 1993 but stayed on as a manager. A new CEO was brought in, and parties insisted the moves were "not a takeover."

The new boss, Raymond Sparks, said there was "not enough focus on making the business profitable." By then, Borders, a national bookstore chain, had made inroads in the Rochester area. Barnes & Noble would soon similarly flex its corporate muscle here.

Village Green had a dozen stores by 1996, including in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The rapid growth was taking its toll, though. The company began closing "underperforming" stores and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 1998. The following year, the last remaining store, the flagship Village Green on Monroe Avenue, shuttered its doors. The last chapter of the venerated bookstore had been written. A wine-and-spirits store and a pizza shop now occupy the space.

Morrell is a Rochester-based freelance writer.

About this feature

"Whatever Happened To? ..." is a feature that explores favorite haunts of the past and revisits the headlines of yesteryear. It's a partnership between RocRoots.com and "Hometown Rochester" on Facebook.

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