Pages: an afterword

Pages owner Marc Glassman and Pages staff throughout the ages

Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate 30 years of Pages Books and Magazines at the Gladstone Hotel last night. The event was more of a wake, with touching sendoffs from people representing each literary section of the store. Spacing was happy to be a partner for this important event along with Coach House Books, NOW, and This Is Not A Reading Series.

Pages was special to us because the store embodied everything we like about the city life: it had a great community vibe, staff possessed hyper-local sensibilities when promoting publications, and the fact that almost 100% of people shopping there arrived on foot. Pages acted as a human-scale counter-balance to the imposing CityTV just across the street.

Pages was also a huge pusher of Spacing: almost 40% of our Toronto newsstand sales came off of their shelves making us the store’s top-selling magazine. Other independent Canadian magazines often sold over 10% of their newsstands copies through Pages. But beyond just selling our magazine, Pages staff let us do a window display for the magazine’s second issue about pedestrian issues; the store exclusively sold our end-of-year holiday gift pack wrapped in a TTC map; and you could often find our subway buttons for sale on their front counter.

We graciously thank Pages’ staff for their friendliness and help since our launch. We’re gonna miss you.