Kinokuniya to Open New Flagship Bookstore in New York

by Kevin Howell -- Publishers Weekly, 8/2/2007 8:20:00 AM

Kinokuniya, the largest bookstore chain in Japan, will be opening a 24,000 sq.-ft. flagship store this fall in New York City. Kay Ngee Tan Architects are designing the bookstore, which will occupy three floors and include a café overlooking Bryant Park on the Avenue of Americas between 40th & 41st streets. The new store will become Kinokuniya’s largest U.S. outlet (a title previously held by the 13,700 sq.-ft. bookstore inside New York City’s Rockefeller Center that opened in 1981). Construction is underway with a plan for an early-October grand opening.

Although the opening date is still tentative, the week-long series of events to kick off its opening have already been cemented. Anime and manga fans will be able to meet artists, editors and translators from Viz Media. There will be a cooking demonstration by cookbook author Machiko Chiba (The Cook-Zen Cookbook); a talk on baseball in the U.S. and in Japan by sports journalist Marion Robertson; and an art exhibition featuring the works by the legendary Osamu Tezuka, who is often created as the father of Anime (and creator of Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion). There will also be a reading from You Were Born for a Reason by co-author and psychotherapist Daiji Akahashi.

Kinokuniya’s philosophy is that bookstores should function as centers for the promotion of culture and the arts, and not merely as outlets for selling books. “The new store will focus on Japanese arts and culture; Anime; fashion and cooking,” said spokesperson Brent O'Connor. The new store will carry books, magazines, comics, DVDs and CDs (in both Japanese and English) as well as stationery, candy and collectibles.

The Kinokuniya bookstore chain is operated by Kinokuniya Company Ltd. It was founded with a single store in Shinjuku, Tokyo in 1927. The chain opened its first overseas bookstore in San Francisco in 1969. The chain operates 84 stores internationally, but a breakdown of U.S. stores was not available.