Miles Bellamy has left his position as co-owner, with Jonas Kyle, of Spoonbill & Sugartown, Booksellers, Brooklyn, N.Y. In a post on the store’s Facebook page, Bellamy wrote: “Friends, colleagues, patrons and patronesses of Spoonbill all these years: It’s with a complex brew of sweet and bitter nectars that I’ll walk today back out through the hallowed doors of my favorite bookshop, for the last time as its co-owner. I conceived of it some time in late 1998, Jonas came on board, and we opened just before the turn of the millennium with the shelves lightly filled, barely a thousand books, and a warm feeling that we were in the right place.
“All these years later, through 9/11 and recession and the coming of the chains, the transformation of Williamsburg from an enclave of artists to–well you fill in the word here–through sky-high rent and a pandemic to boot, the old book-hearts are still beating. How do I feel after 21 years? Chiefly: humility, gratitude and wonder. You made the shop what it is with your questions, suggestions, needs and wants. We acted as a vessel for your knowledge, as it were.
“But all things must pass and I myself will be leaving this bookshop and this city and starting anew ‘somewhere in the mountains.’ (This is not the place to sound my trumpet about that, much as I itch to, but I’ll keep you posted.) In the meantime, please keep coming in and buying books, the shop needs you. The shop can’t continue without you. Long live Jonas, long live Spoonbill & Sugartown!”
