David Mirvish Books, that glorious emporium on Markham selling art-related books is going down. A fluctuating Canadian dollar, the need for improvements to the building and a changing retail landscape have conspired to force the unique store to close its doors.
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Now that T.O.’s most browseworthy bookshop has closed its doors, our urban geography has changed for good – who of us hasn’t walked through the Bathurst and Bloor area itching to get our fingers on one of those spectacular coffee table books?
Manager Eleanor Johnston suggests that was actually one of the problems. The store has a whack of out-of-print books that will be available online but that she simply couldn’t risk putting out on the stores’ tables. All that browsing tends to degrade the materials.
You’ll still be able to shop online but Johnston’s not sure how long that will last, or whether the idea is simply to sell off current stock until it runs dry.
It’s true that bookstores are going down all over T.O. It doesn’t help that Indigo has been squeezing the smaller ones out or that Amazon can sell books online at low prices. But art books are such a specialized area and David Mirvish Books always had a cult following, so what gives?
Johnston says that the sudden rise in the Canadian dollar forced prices to fall last year and that did have an impact on the bottom line. Plus, much of Mirvish Books’ stock is highly specialized so that some of the art criticism of a particular artist would be of interest to, maybe, three or four people. Business-wise, it just didn’t add up.
While the staff – numbering eight – will be moving on, there are no plans yet to lease the space.
“There’s a hugh Frank Stelle – 10 ft by 50 ft – in the back of the store and it’s not going anywhere right now, so we can’t lease the space as long as it’s there,” says Johnston, who will stay on to assist David Mirvish with managing the rest of his spectacular art collection.
It’s the end of an era, for sure, she goes on. Mirvish Books was a major landmark.
“You just don’t associate your city with your favourite Gap Store or Second Cup,” she says ruefully.
