Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio, who constructed a unmarried book shop into a countrywide powerhouse, kicked the bucket in New York Town on Tuesday, the corporate stated. He was once 83.
Riggio died “following a valiant fight with Alzheimer’s illness,” consistent with a observation issued by means of his circle of relatives.
The brash Riggio’s near-half century reign started in 1971 when he used a $1.2 million mortgage to buy Barnes & Noble’s identify and the flagship shop on decrease 5th Road in Big apple.
AP
“His management spanned a long time, all through which he no longer simplest grew the corporate but in addition nurtured a tradition of innovation and a love for studying,” reads a observation from Barnes & Noble.
“Len’s imaginative and prescient and entrepreneurial spirit remodeled the retail panorama.”
He obtained masses of latest retail outlets over the following two decades and, within the Nineties, introduced what changed into a national empire of “superstores” that mixed a series’s bargain costs and big capability with the comfortable enchantment of couches, studying chairs and cafes.
Leonard Riggio, who led Barnes & Noble to grow to be the biggest book shop chain in america, died on Tuesday at 83. AP
“Our bookstores had been designed to be welcoming versus intimidating,” Riggio instructed The New York Instances in 2016. “Those weren’t elitist puts. You have to move in, get a cup of espresso, take a seat down and browse a guide for so long as you favor, use the restroom. Those had been inventions that we had that nobody idea was once imaginable.”
He took the corporate public in 1993 after which driven ahead a store-opening spree. Barnes & Noble opened a couple of new shop every week in 1997.
“It was once an enormous jump ahead as it helped take hardcovers, which had up to now been carriage industry pieces, into the mass marketplace,” publishing veteran Laurence Kirshbaum stated in a 2023 interview. “Barnes & Noble introduced studying into dwelling rooms out of doors of the foremost city facilities.”
The chain grew so robust that it was once blamed for placing smaller impartial bookstores into chapter 11.
The chain grew so robust that it was once blamed for placing smaller impartial bookstores into chapter 11. jordi2r – inventory.adobe.com
“Why am I the predator, but when a pleasing impartial book shop opens a department, it’s like welcome to the Messiah?” Riggio instructed the Wall Side road Magazine in 1992. “I believe each and every new book shop will have to be celebrated, irrespective of its pedigree.”
Riggio devoted his lifestyles to literacy, schooling and the humanities, supporting organizations together with the Kids’s Protection Fund, the Anti-Defamation League and the Dia, a modern artwork museum in upstate Beacon.
He additionally based non-profit Undertaking House Once more together with his spouse, Louise. The charity constructed and donated 101 houses in New Orleans after Typhoon Katrina devastated town.
A life-time New Yorker, Riggio was once raised in Brooklyn and attended New York College, the place he labored within the school book shop.
He dropped out of school in 1965 to open his first book shop, SBX, or Scholar Ebook Alternate.
His father was once a cab driving force and prize fighter who beat Rocky Graziano two times, most likely explaining why the book shop founder was once so steadily described by means of the media as “feisty” or “gutsy.”
Hillary Clinton, with Riggio in 2017, arrives to signal copies of her guide “What Came about”. AP
Riggio lived in a Park Road condo and owned a Tudor-style mansion in Bridgehampton with a sculpture lawn.
He served as grand marshal within the 2017 NYC Columbus Day Parade and rubbed shoulders with friends like singer Tony Bennet and previous NYC Mayor David Dinkins.
“My nationality is New York Town,” he instructed Industry Week in 1998. “I don’t imply I’m a New Yorker just like the New York Instances is a New Yorker. I imply it within the Horatio Alger sense.
Barnes & Noble started to take a earnings hit from greater on-line festival and its failed Corner e-reading instrument undertaking within the overdue 2010s.
Riggio bought the corporate in 2019 to Elliott, an activist investor staff based by means of billionaire Paul Singer.
He stepped down from B&N in 2016, final upbeat in regards to the corporate’s long term and made up our minds to carry onto his sizable stake in spite of stiff festival from Amazon and the e book business.
“There’s all the time been gloom and doom about the way forward for the guide industry, nevertheless it helps to keep chugging alongside,” Riggio instructed The Put up in 2016.
He’s survived by means of his spouse, 3 daughters and 4 grandchildren.
