To book lovers in West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and the Fairfax and beyond, the closing is not good.

Once upon a time, for many years, the area along La Cienega Blvd. between Third Street and Beverly Boulevard, was one of the most mind stimulating walking shopping areas anywhere in the country. The Beverly Center had a Brentano's on the third level next to the theaters. The Beverly Connection had a Book Star, a smaller Barnes and Noble front. It also had Wherehouse for music and Good Guys for home entertainment products. You could visit any of these any time and find something you hadn't seen before.

Soon, with Border's closing, with one exception, nothing will be left. If you are not into over priced clothing at Beverly Center and don't need anything from the mid price clothing centers at the Beverly Connection disaster, no place will be left to just go look and browse. The area has become a complete bore.

The remaining exception is Traveler's Bookcase at 8375 West 3rd Street. It remains there.

I have heard various stories about the closing, none of which have come from verifiable sources.

One story says the store was not performing well. I question that story. I have frequently been there, and have consistently seen people in line buying on all days of the week and at all times of the day. I have visited other Border's, and this one seemed the busiest and best located of all.

Another story says that the lease expired, and the owners wanted a big increase, which Borders wouldn't pay. This story has credibility because we have seen it happen so often in LA, notably with respect to restaurants. LA has seen so many good restaurants go because greedy property owners wanted to extract all of the profits in higher rent and wound up with long term empty space.

I don't think the Barnes and Noble at the Grove was that big a factor. Parking at the Grove is a pain. The adjacent free parking lot made the Borders more convenient and accessible for many, including me.

I have heard another unconfirmed story that Border's is planning a move to an unannounced development in the City of West Hollywood proper. West Hollywood officials are seeking to screw the City of Los Angeles, in which the store is located, by getting the business to move there and getting sales tax revenue from it.

I could believe that story.

The number of people in the closing lines has surprised me. I knew this was a good market area for books, and the store always seemed busy to me. The 20 percent discount, I thought, wasn't that much. You can get almost that much off online. If you buy the card at Barnes and Noble, you can get ten percent off. Twenty percent is not enough to make me take my dolly and fill it up. To my surprise, the demand is more elastic than I thought, and twenty percent has brought out the buyers in big numbers.

A few days ago, they reduced the bargain book discount to 40 percent. You could again see the elasticity of the demand as some of those shelves began to empty.

It is interesting to see what moved out first. For all the talk about music CDs disappearing and the reduced space for them at the store, the discount buyers made a line to the CD racks. A lot of people apparently still like CDs.

I have also noticed that art books are disappearing quickly.

Religious books seem more popular than I thought.

Some areas have move more slowly. I have been surprised that more hasn't gone from the History section.

I have looked several times at what people were holding in line and haven't seen two people yet with the same thing.

This story presents a public policy worry. To my knowledge, information about the finances of the site have not emerged. The owners and lenders may believe that they can hold out for a higher rent. What kind of business could take that location and do more with it isn't apparent to me. The site isn't big enough for something like a major supermarket, which the area needs. It might be OK for a mid range clothing outlet, but the area is full of them. It would be large for a restaurant. It might be right for a Staples or Office Depot, but there are plenty of them already.

What worries me is that somewhere someone may be thinking they can gamble on getting a higher paying tenant and, if they are wrong, they will default and unload the loss on the financial system and someone will collect from Bush/Obama/Berneke guarantees and pass the loss to the taxpayer. This worry has credibility because our financial system today actually does work that way.

Further comments and notes are invited.