Los Angeles Times Covers How THE LAST BOOKSTORE Is Building a Community in Downtown Los Angeles

The LAT's website has the Sunday Book section's story by Deborah Vankin up on the latest additions to the ever expanding THE LAST BOOKSTORE at 5th and Spring in the Spring Arts Tower.  And you see a vaguely familiar cowboy lurking in the shadows of one of the photos of the slideshow.  Below are just the opening paragraphs of the story:

Jacket Copy

BOOKS, AUTHORS AND ALL THINGS BOOKISH

Community gathers at the Last Bookstore

Not only is the venue surviving in downtown L.A., it has expanded. Neighboring artists help transform an upstairs space into the Labyrinth.

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The first incarnation of the Last Bookstore opened on Christmas 2009 in a small space on 4th and Main streets; it's now the restaurant Baco Mercat.

What propelled Spencer to expand the store to its current location when the rest of the book publishing industry was seemingly imploding?

"I'm no businessman," Spencer says with a laugh. "I think in terms of story."

The narrative in his head was rich. Spencer spent nights in the empty would-be bookstore, staring at its 25-foot-high ceiling and mosaic tile floor, imagining what he might build there.

"I'd sit for hours and feel the room. The pillars, the space, it made me think of Indiana Jones as a professor, a 1920s university lecture hall," he says. "Also, the movies 'Hellboy,' 'The Rocketeer,' 'Dark City' — that inspired the steampunk, neo-Victorian palette."

In an ironic twist, Spencer was able to buy inexpensive shelving, books and other fixtures from local Borders bookstores when the chain shut down.

And click here to read the rest of the story.