By Richard Magat

Aug. 26, 2015:  When this column was launched, it was not intended to pit the Village of Bronxville against the mammoth metropolis to its south. But it turns out that Bronxville tops Manhattan in at least one important respect.

That is, its lone bookstore--Womrath Bookshop--has survived seventy-eight years, while the number of bookstores in Manhattan has dropped nearly 50 percent from 150 in 2000. Even mega-bookstores have regularly been closing stores; Barnes & Noble has closed more than half of its Manhattan locations since 2007.

The decline in bookstores reflects the advent of the Internet and mass market giants like Amazon, as well as technological developments like audiobooks, e-books, and e-readers, such as the Kindle.

The casualties include the ornate 107-year-old building that housed Rizzoli Bookstore, an architectural gem on 57th Street, which failed to win the protection of the Landmarks Preservation Commission. The novelist Ann Coulter compares its demise to the Taliban's destruction of the Buddha statues. (But note that Rizzoli Bookstore has just opened its new flagship store in the NoMad district.)

Among the notable survivors is the Strand Bookstore, which claims to house 18 miles of books. More intimate but closer to my heart is The Corner Bookstore, on 93rd Street and Madison Avenue, nine blocks from my apartment. Occupied by Z Pharmacy for 50 years, it boasted an exquisite interior that was grist for the handyman co-owner Ray Golay. He and his wife also restored its brick-and-brownstone façade.

Bronxville's Womrath Bookshop is under the tutelage of Gene Sgarlata, who has fostered several best sellers, including a thriller, The Thieves of Heaven, written by a neighbor, which is to be released as a movie. Sgarlata is reluctant to read manuscripts by customers who are aspiring writers. "I am not an editor," he noted, "but you have to be very polite or brutally honest in fielding these requests." (Although Gene has declined to display any of the books I have written, I remain a fan of his.)

Pictured here:  Womrath Bookshop.

Photo by A. Warner