A (sort of) Farewell and an Exuberant Welcome

On September 26, 2022, my partner-in-all-things, John W. Marshall, and I closed on the sale of
our building at 2414 N. 45th Street in Wallingford, a neighborhood where one or both of us has
had a footprint since the 1970s.

We bought what was a residential building in 1994 as a new home for our newly transformed
bookstore, Open Books: A Poem Emporium. We were moving the store just a few blocks east
from 1716 N. 45th, where we had run Open Books as a general bookstore for seven years.
Now the inviting site of Chocolati Cafe, 1716 was for decades a storied (sorry) location for a
series of bookstores, including Montana Books, Miller-Mungo, 45th Street Books, and
Vandewater Books.

Indeed for a long time, Wallingford was a hub for bookstores. Second Story Bookstore, Couth
Buzzard, Wide World Books are just a few of recent memory. At the edge of the neighborhood,
lower Stone Way had a little used-bookstore row with B. Brown and Associates and SeaOcean
Book Berth.

After receiving permission to change 2414 to commercial use and converting the basement
and driveway into a retail space, we officially opened what was now a poetry-only bookstore
on April 27, 1995. Soon after, our former Wallingford neighbors opened The Bungalow Wine
Bar & Cafe in the upper floor, which was given its own address of 2412 N. 45th St. And which
—following the closing of the cafe, our conversion of the property to mixed-use this time, and
another remodel—would become our home address, where we have lived for 13 years. And
from which John and I will soon be moving. In 2016, after 29 years in the book business, we
sold the bookstore to long-time customer Billie Swift, who in April of this year moved the
bookstore to a charming space in Pioneer Square. In May we put the building on the market,
and this week the sale was finalized.

We’ll let the new owners introduce themselves to you more fully, but for now, it gives us
immense pleasure to say that 2414 N. 45th will house a bookstore again. Magus Books, one of
Seattle’s iconic used bookstores, will be opening Magus Annex here in October. We are thrilled,
and know that Wallingford will be, too.

Dear Wallingford, you have meant the world to us. We have lived here, worked here, eaten in
your many restaurants (from Tien Tsin to Dumpling the Noodle), walked every continually
interesting inch of you, met almost every clerk at the Wallingford post office since 1987,
banked at your financial institutions from First Interstate to Verity Credit Union, with joy been
greeted by your cats and dogs, and been deeply nourished by your residents. Thank you, one
and all.

While we are moving to another neighborhood in the city, we know we will be coming back to
Wallingford over and over—to hear music at the Chapel Performance Space, get tazones at
TNT, buy books at Magus Annex, and so much more. How lucky are we?