Booksmith Makes History in Coolidge Corner

On Friday, Brookline Booksmith will mark a new stage in its 61-year tenure in Brookline with a ribbon-cutting and other festivities to celebrate the latest expansion of the venerable bookstore.
https://www.brooklinebooksmith.com/event/brookline-booksmith-ribbon-cutting-celebration

Like the Coolidge Corner Theatre (also expanding), its neighbor across Harvard Street, Booksmith is an icon and an anchor -- socially, culturally, and economically -- of its neighborhood, serving the local community and drawing visitors and customers from throughout the region.

The new addition to the store, incorporating the space formerly occupied by Dependable Cleaners, gives Booksmith an unbroken streetscape between Starbucks and the recently opened Mecha Noodle Bar at the corner of Green Street.  

Top: A 1960s photo-montage from the Brookline Preservation Department showing the original Paperback Booksmith store on the far right and a series of storefronts that have since been incorporated into the expanded bookstore. Bottom: A view of the same streetscape in October 2022 (Click on the image for a much larger view)

In honor of the occasion, I've taken a look at the long history of the row of storefronts now occupied by Booksmith, going back more than 110 years to a brick commercial building erected at 279 Harvard Street in 1910. That building was the first occupied by Paperback Booksmith in 1963 after two years at 271 Harvard (now game Stop).. 

Among the previous occupants of that space and the other storefronts now part of Booksmith have been:

• The Racheotes Brothers' Faneuil Hall Fruit Store at 279 Harvard Street  in 1911 and later at 281 and 283 Harvard
• A.J. Landy & Co., the first kosher delicatessen in Brookline, which opened at 279 Harvard in 1914.
• A pair of grocery stores that competed, side by side in the 1940s: Finast, or First National Stores, at 279; and Stop & Shop, extending south from Green Street at 285.

The Racheotes Brothers' Faneuil Hall Fruit Store, opened at 279 Harvard Street in 1911 and moved next door to 281 and 283 shortly after. The fruit store moved across Beacon Street to 253 Harvard Street (now Breugger's Bagel's) in 1940. (Their sign can still be seen on the back of the Breugger's building, as shown below.)

This First National Stores, or Finast, supermarket, seen here in an ad for a 1947 remodeling, was in business at Booksmith's original location from the 1920s through the 1950s.

Stop & Shop, which had been at 289 Harvard Street, moved across Green Street to a new space extending south from the corner, as seen in this 1942 ad. It remained there until 1950. (Part of that space is now Mecha Noodle Bar and part Booksmith.)

There have been many others, too, including a florist, a hairdresser, an upholsterer, a rug dealer, a bakery, a drug store, a milliner, a women's clothing store, and several more over the years, all in spaces now occupied by Booksmith.

A few more ads and images from the pre-Booksmith days are below. I'll have more, including more recent occupants, in a later post.

Fine the Florist, 279 Harvard Street, 1922 ad

Baker Apothercary, 281 Harvard Street, 1948 ad

Schrafft's, 283 Harvard Street, 1940 ad

Adeles Hats of Distinction, 283 Harvard Street, 1936 ad

Schulte-United Junior Department Store, 285 Harvard Street, 1929 ad. (The company, which made a big splash with full page ads like this, went bankrupt two years later.)

NOTE: Advertisements are from town directories and Brookline newspapers digitized by the Public Library of Brookline and other sources.