Goodbye to a Houston Legend

The beloved Alabama Bookstop closed for good on September 15th (one day before a fancy new Barnes and Noble location opened in the River Oaks Shopping Center on West Gray). The store, which occupied an old art deco theater on the corner of Shepherd and West Alabama, was a Houston legend.

An appreciation of the store in the Houston Press includes recollections of the store's heyday from John Cramer, a loyal store employee from 1994 until 2008. See, for example, this memory of the time Ozzy Osbourbe came in to the store:

He bought a book on genocide and another on venereal disease. He said the book on V.D. was for his daughter and was for informational purposes only, and he wanted everyone to know that although the book on genocide was for him, he was not a Nazi.

Those of you interested in what will happen to the 13,000 square foot space, read the speculations at Swamplot.