Brentano's

Brentano's

Company type	Private (historical)
Industry	Retail (Bookstore)
Founded	1 January 1853 (1853-01-01) in New York City, United States
Founder	August Brentano
Defunct	1985 (1985)
Fate	Bankruptcy and liquidation; brand acquired by Waldenbooks/Borders
Headquarters	New York City , United States
Area served	United States, Europe (Paris, London), Canada (Toronto)
Key people	Simon Brentano (president until 1915), Arthur Brentano (president after 1915), Stanton Griffis (chairman), Adolf Kroch (owner of Chicago branch), Arthur Brentano Jr. (president after 1944), Nixon Griffis (president after 1949)
Products	Bookselling; Publishing (Éditions Brentano's imprint)
Parent	Macmillan Publishers (until 1981), then independent management, later Waldenbooks/Borders

This article is about the New York–originated bookstore chain later acquired by Waldenbooks and subsequently by Borders. For the unrelated Chicago-based chain with a similar name, see Kroch's and Brentano's.

Brentano's was a prominent American bookstore chain that operated numerous outlets throughout the United States.

File:Brentano's Booksellers & Stationers 37 Avenue de l'Opera Paris - from, Wyndham Bolling Blanton scrapbook (1915) - 17 0653 110 Inside Back Cover (cropped).jpg

Brentano's booksellers label in Paris, 1915

During the 1970s, four Brentano's stores were located in New York City: the flagship on Fifth Avenue at Rockefeller Center, alongside locations in Greenwich Village, Manhasset, and White Plains. A store in Bergen Mall (Paramus, New Jersey) was closed as a new outlet was being developed in Short Hills, New Jersey. The Boston area hosted Brentano's stores in Chestnut Hill and at the Prudential Center. Additionally, there was a location in Austin, Texas. Southern California featured three stores situated in Westwood Village, Beverly Hills, and Costa Mesa. Near Washington, D.C., two stores operated: one at the Seven Corners shopping center in Falls Church, Virginia, and another at Prince Georges Plaza in Maryland.

Ownership of Brentano's during the 1970s and early 1980s belonged to Macmillan before three senior executives of Brentano's purchased the company. Shortly thereafter, Brentano's became part of Waldenbooks, itself a subsidiary of Borders, a retailer specializing in books and music headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

History

The origins of Brentano's trace back to 1853 when August Brentano founded it as an independent bookstore in New York City by establishing a newsstand outside the New York Hotel.

In 1883, the company inaugurated its first branch store outside New York City in Washington D.C. The following year, a second branch opened its doors in Chicago.

Simon Brentano led the company as president until his passing in 1915, after which his brother Arthur assumed leadership.

By 1928, Brentano's operated four additional stores beyond New York City—in Washington D.C., Chicago, London, and Paris. On the cusp of the Great Depression, the firm expanded rapidly to become the nation's largest bookstore chain with four outlets within New York City and single locations in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington. However, this expansion incurred significant debt leading creditors to mandate a reorganization in 1930 while allowing the Brentano family to maintain operational control. Despite ongoing financial challenges, Brentano's opened its tenth U.S. store in Pittsburgh that same year.

The financial difficulties persisted despite reorganization efforts; consequently, in March 1933 Brentano's filed for bankruptcy under pressure from its publishers and banking institutions.

During bankruptcy proceedings, financier Stanton Griffis—later a U.S. ambassador—and Chicago bookseller Adolf Kroch acquired the company. Griffis assumed the role of chairman of the board while retaining Arthur Brentano as president. Kroch obtained ownership of the Chicago branch store along with exclusive rights to use the Brentano's name within Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin. He operated this store as a subsidiary separate from his existing Kroch's bookstore until 1954 when both entities merged to form Kroch's and Brentano's. Kroch successfully prevented Macmillan, Waldenbooks, and Borders from utilizing the Brentano's brand within the Chicago market area.

Following Arthur Brentano’s death in 1944, his son Arthur Brentano Jr. succeeded him as president. Five years later, Nixon Griffis—the son of Stanton Griffis—replaced Arthur Jr. as president.

In 1962 Crowell Collier purchased Brentano's; at that time the chain comprised sixteen stores across five states plus Washington D.C. The first store established in southern California opened its doors in Beverly Hills in 1972.

Two decades later Macmillan Publishers (which had absorbed Crowell Collier) divested Brentano's by selling it to three members of its management team in 1981. At that point Brentano's operated twenty-eight stores including locations in Boston, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Toronto, Dallas, San Francisco, and San Diego. Unfortunately, less than a year later new management filed for bankruptcy protection in 1982 and proceeded with liquidation by 1984.

During this liquidation process Waldenbooks—a subsidiary of Kmart—acquired three stores located in Beverly Hills, Costa Mesa (California), and St. Louis with plans initially to convert them into Waldenbooks outlets. However, after refurbishing these stores while retaining the Brentano’s nameplate they realized higher sales compared to typical Waldenbooks locations of similar age. Consequently Waldenbooks opted to preserve the Brentano’s brand identity and expanded it into other affluent neighborhoods as an upscale bookstore division.

In 1992 Kmart acquired Borders and maintained Brentano’s within Waldenbooks’ organizational structure until creating the Borders-Walden Group shortly before spinning off Borders as an independent company in 1994. Under Borders' ownership Brentano’s continued to be managed by Waldenbooks; however heightened competition from superstores and online retailers during the 1990s and early 2000s led to closures of unprofitable Brentano’s and Waldenbooks outlets.

Eventually on July 18th 2011 Borders Group filed for bankruptcy resulting in closure of all remaining Brentano’s stores nationwide.

Europe

Throughout its history, Brentano's operated locations outside the United States. Under Arthur Brentano's direction, the company established stores in both Paris and London. Although these European outlets were owned by the Brentano family, they functioned independently from the corporation managing the American stores and thus were unaffected by the 1933 bankruptcy. The exact timing of when the Brentano family divested their interests in these European shops remains unclear.

These European branches attracted numerous American expatriates and served as a channel for distributing American newspapers and works by U.S. authors who were relatively unknown abroad. Many of these titles were reprinted in Europe by Brentano's to reach a wider European audience.

An 1887 article in The New York Times reports that Arthur Brentano inaugurated the Paris store (Brentano's S.A.) on the Avenue de l'Opéra in 1887. The shop was forced to close during the German occupation of France in World War II but was among the earliest American-owned businesses to resume operations following the Liberation of Paris.

The Paris location on Avenue de l'Opéra ceased operations in 2009 but was subsequently purchased and reopened in 2010 by Iranian entrepreneur Farock Sharifi.

The London branch (Brentano's Ltd.) commenced business in 1889. At that time, Brentano's maintained stores in New York, Chicago, Washington, and Paris as well. According to a 1927 piece from The Washington Post, by that period, the London store may have transitioned into functioning primarily as a publishing office.

Canada

During Macmillan's ownership, Brentano's inaugurated its sole Canadian branch in Toronto in 1975. This location was unique as the only bookstore owned by an American company operating physically in Canada. Its establishment faced opposition from nationalist publishing organizations lobbying the Canadian government to block the entry, despite Canadian chains like Classics and Coles having unrestricted operations in the United States. The Toronto store ceased operations shortly after Brentano's filed for bankruptcy in 1982.

Publishing

Operating from its main office at 586 Fifth Avenue, Brentano's expanded into publishing, focusing particularly on French literature. Under the imprint "Éditions Brentano's," it published numerous works by French authors who were exiled during the Vichy France era.

To avoid the risk of liquidation, Brentano's sold its publishing division to Coward-McCann in 1933, allowing the company to concentrate on retail activities.

In popular culture

In the 1943 movie Heaven Can Wait, Henry Van Cleve (portrayed by Don Ameche) encounters his future spouse Martha Strable (Gene Tierney) at Brentano's.

The bookstore was also featured in an episode of Mad About You, where Barbara Feldon appeared as a novelist conducting a book signing event.

Brentano's gained notable screen time in several episodes of Seinfeld, especially in "The Bookstore".

Additionally, the store appears in the film Norman... Is That You?.

Literary mentions include references to Brentano's in William Dean Howells' novel A Hazard of New Fortunes (chapter 10), and in works by F. Scott Fitzgerald, such as the short story "Babylon Revisited", Tender Is the Night (chapter XX), and This Side of Paradise (chapter 2).

See also

• Kroch's and Brentano's
• Books in the United States

External links

• Official website of Brentano's Paris
• Archived history of Brentano's: the American Bookstore in Paris, preserved at the Internet Archive