There are benefits to relocating a business nearby. Porter Square Books expects to take advantage of an unusual one: At 1 p.m. Sunday it will form a human chain to pass books person to person from the current location at 25 White St. (closing the next day, Monday) to the new location at 1815 Massachusetts Ave. (expected to open around Oct. 10-11).
That’s a difference of around 1,000 feet from one site to another going “through the parking lot, across Somerville Avenue (waiting patiently for the walk signal, of course!) and past the T stop to the new location,” the store says on its website. It’ll require around 100 people, co-owner David Sandberg said during a Sept. 24 tour of the new location, though the bulk of the move will be handled by professionals.
At the tours in September, he described the layout and advantages of the new store to groups of around a dozen (“That people are so excited to see a construction site is great,” he quipped). That includes having 20 percent more space for books – a more robust selection of speculative fiction and romance are likely uses, as “romance for years has been the fastest-growing section” – and a more comfortable, flexible space for the store’s busy calendar of readings. Audiences of around 120 people are possible in the new location, up from around 100.
Also, though there not be a lot of cozy chairs for customers to curl up in, “we’re going to have more seating than we have now, which is zero,” Sandberg said.
The children’s section will get its own room, too, and a YA section will be separate and even separated – maybe put by the second set of glass doors on Massachusetts Avenue that will be for emergency exits only – as it turns out those young adults don’t like to be associated with children, Sandberg observed wryly.
Though the human chain sounds potentially arduous, Porter Square Books owners balanced that with not having to also lug fixtures from one place to another: The location within Lesley University’s building will have all-new shelving and counters. What happens to the old stuff wasn’t known as of the Sept. 24 tour. “Do you want some?” Sandberg asked one of his guests. “We’ll put a listing on Craigslist and offer it up.”
Porter Square Books is asking people to RSVP for the human chain beginning the transfer at 1 p.m. Sunday.
This post was updated Oct. 3, 2024, with clarifications about the move.
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