WHAT'S UP WITH BORDERS ?

[Son-of-a-Weizen]

How about the one off of King Street near the Madeleine's? Not sure what town that is, but if you drive out of Old Town Alexandria it's on the right maybe 3 or 4 miles from Old Town.

Right, follow Route 7 (King Street which becomes Leesburg Pike) over to Falls Church. The jazz section at that location is also in serious shrink down mode but there's still a better selection than the other. I was there a couple of weeks ago....found a Buster Williams sacd which was surprising.

[Harold_Z]

How about the one off of King Street near the Madeleine's? Not sure what town that is, but if you drive out of Old Town Alexandria it's on the right maybe 3 or 4 miles from Old Town.

Right, follow Route 7 (King Street which becomes Leesburg Pike) over to Falls Church. The jazz section at that location is also in serious shrink down mode but there's still a better selection than the other. I was there a couple of weeks ago....found a Buster Williams sacd which was surprising.

I hope it's worth the drive next time. Old Town Olsen's hasn't much anymore. Even less than it used to, and there was a used vinyl store on King Street that banged up a couple of years ago. Slim pickin's.

[BeBop]

I've decided to put in a bid for the company. I assume I can apply that 30% off coupon...

[Dan Gould]

I meant to post this over the weekend but I finally stopped at the Borders which, ironically enough, was the first Borders I ever visited, back in the early 90s. I was visiting a friend and as we were driving to dinner, I saw the Borders sign on the building and thought, "I've got to go in there, Borders is supposed to have a huge music selection." At this time I had only been collecting jazz for about five years, so there was a lot of stuff I didn't have yet - and I was in heaven spending about two hours going through their jazz section. Whenever I came back to south Florida, I made sure to take the opportunity to stop in and act like a jazz piggy again.

Well, obviously in the intervening years, the selection narrowed, and DVDs invaded the available space, but I was truly blown away when I walked in there on Saturday:

Imagine an entire room, so large that is was nearly the same amount of floor space as was devoted to books & magazines and was once filled with music, DVDs, audio accessories, and music books. Its now got all of the music crammed into a space approximately 20% of its former size. Between 30 and 40 CD display racks have completely disappeared, and in their place sit two lonely tables with chairs around them.

No wonder there was no one on duty at the desk. It looked like a fucking mausoleum.

[ghost of miles]

I had a very similar experience recently at the Borders here where I used to work. Bit of a bummer to see all the jazz-artist cards that I made for the section sitting there with no CDs to represent them.

Edited May 12, 2008 by ghost of miles

[mgraham333]

I posted this in the Borders Coupon thread a couple of weeks ago. This is what is happening at the south location in my town. I stopped by the north location a few days later and saw a similar sight.

I too remember spending hours, walking through the Jazz setion. Now I can peruse the entire jazz selection in a matter of minutes....while standing in place...

[Dan Gould]

I posted this in the Borders Coupon thread a couple of weeks ago. This is what is happening at the south location in my town. I stopped by the north location a few days later and saw a similar sight.

I too remember spending hours, walking through the Jazz setion. Now I can peruse the entire jazz selection in a matter of minutes....while standing in place...

Throw in some short round tables and some chairs and you've got the Borders I visited last Saturday.

[sidewinder]

I posted this in the Borders Coupon thread a couple of weeks ago. This is what is happening at the south location in my town. I stopped by the north location a few days later and saw a similar sight.

I too remember spending hours, walking through the Jazz setion. Now I can peruse the entire jazz selection in a matter of minutes....while standing in place...

Holy sh*t !

[AndrewHill]

I was there a couple of weeks ago to utilize my coupon and I felt lucky to find Dex's Clubhouse and Grif's Introducing RVG's. Nothing like the Borders of the early nineties that used to frequently stock TOJC's along with other imports.

[Tom 1960]

Sad to see and hear about this stuff. I always enjoyed visiting there stores in the past. They always had better prices than Barnes And Noble there major competitor and a much better selection of releases. Outside of an occasional visit to Newbury Comics, the net has now become my major source for cd purchases these days.

Edited May 13, 2008 by Tom 1960

[sidewinder]

And to think that some of those Borders I checked out during US trips were quite a good source of Conns and the Verve Elite Editions (sigh..)

[GregK]

Still good selections at the Ann Arbor Borders. I couldn't decide between four ECMs this afternoon; I ended up with Jacob Young, Sideways

[ghost of miles]

Just found out that Borders #115 here in Bloomington will be closing for good as of January 7.

[danasgoodstuff]

The downtown Portland, OR store will also be closing Jan 7th.

[BERIGAN]

Seems they are closing more, from what an "hourly manager" (What is that Ghost?) says, stores that have leases ending, they are not renewing.

http://www.nj.com/news/times/regional/index.ssf?/base/news-21/1288071923269120.xml&coll=5

[Spontooneous]

AP is reporting that as of today, the company is delaying paying some suppliers. And the stock is sinking like a stone in after-hours trading.

[Chuck Nessa]

As leases expire..........

[BruceH]

AP is reporting that as of today, the company is delaying paying some suppliers. And the stock is sinking like a stone in after-hours trading.

I swear, I heard about them not paying some suppliers two or three years ago. Maybe I got that wrong, but it made me think they were going down back then. Now I guess they're going like Blockbuster, in super-slow-motion.

[GA Russell]

I believe that when a retailer reorganizes in bankruptcy, its outstanding gift cards are worthless. If so, better cash them in now!

[ejp626]

I believe that when a retailer reorganizes in bankruptcy, its outstanding gift cards are worthless. If so, better cash them in now!

It's been really frustrating for me. I have about $50 in Borders cards that I can't locate (somewhere in my home office ). Not only have I missed out on some 35% off sales, but if I can't get my act together I might lose it completely. Am trying to clean out the office this weekend.

[medjuck]

Not only is Borders closing in downtown Santa Barbara but so is Barne's and Noble. (People keep wondering if B&N would have closed had they known that Borders, which is across the street from them, was on the way out.) Good news for the locally owned Chaucer's which is doing just fine but they don't sell cds. Maybe this will help the locally own record store which I think is the last one standing.