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Route 58 Borders store shuts down for good

TIM GANNON PHOTO | The Route 58 Borders store closed down this week.

Borders Books in Riverhead, which had long been the North Fork’s only big-name bookseller, is now closed for good.

The Borders Group announced in July that it would be closing all 399 of its stores, with liquidation sales beginning immediately and store closures slated for an unspecified time in September.

That time has come, as the Riverhead store on Route 58 closed this week. All of the fixtures and merchandise gone.

Borders’ problems were national, not local, as the company had declared bankruptcy earlier this year and had been reported to be heavily in debt for several years.

Analysts have said that Borders, unlike it’s rival, Barnes & Noble, never grasped the electronic book market or internet retailing soon enough. For many years, Borders’ web site linked merely potential shoppers to Amazon.com, the internet retail giant that many feel contributed to Borders’ demise, whereas Barnes & Noble sold books directly from its own web site.

If you’re wondering if Barnes & Noble might take over the Riverhead Borders’ site, a Barnes & Noble spokesperson declined comment on that issue.

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