"If you were around Manhattan in the 1990s, you hated Barnes & Noble the way you hated garbage strikes or Celine Dion. The chain seemed to expand on a weekly ba

"If you were around Manhattan in the 1990s, you hated Barnes & Noble the way you hated garbage strikes or Celine Dion. The chain seemed to expand on a weekly basis, and it got in the way — of the independent book stores it displaced" I loved B&N in the 90s, and regularly went there to browse the stacks. They had the selection, and the independent book stores didn't. "Those who lived in the Bronx couldn’t help feeling that the gatekeepers of cultural commerce found them unworthy." More like they found the community didn't buy enough books for the bookstore to pay the bills.