When Barnes & Noble flings open its doors on the Third Street Promenade next Wednesday at 10:00 a.m., among those present will be local icon, Jerry Peace Activist Rubin—that’s his legal name—who has sold colorful bumper stickers on the Promenade since 1997.

Barnes & Noble is launching at the same location that once housed the eccentric and eclectic Midnight Special Bookstore, as much a beloved landmark as Rubin himself.

He recalls the heady days near the turn of the century when both Barnes & Noble and Midnight Special graced the Promenade with their presence, and street performers energized the scene with their crowd-magnetizing talents. He looks forward to the economic revitalization heralded by the reopening of Barnes & Noble, and he chuckles mischievously as he contrasts old and new technologies.

“It’s always good to see people out signing—what do you call those things again? Oh, books! Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. You know, you sort of open them and they have paper in them,” he said with a widening smile.

For book-signing and ribbon-cutting at the opening ceremony, Olivie Blake, bestselling author of The Atlas Six, will be on hand to welcome the crowd.

“This is really exciting, especially since she’s local to the area and local to Santa Monica, so it’s kind of a full circle moment for her, which is cool,” said Sarah Abel, manager of the Santa Monica Barnes & Noble. “And then we’re going to have face painters and a balloon person, so that’s super exciting, too.”

Additional authors who will be present at the grand opening include Victoria Aveyard, who writes young adult fantasy fiction, Marie Lu, who writes dystopian fiction, and Brady Smith, who writes children’s fiction.

Abel’s voice brims with ebullience as she describes the selection of books designed to appeal to local audiences, including a collection of California cookbooks and pictorial history books regarding Santa Monica and local beaches.

“We’ve got some really good ones that are local to L.A. and Santa Monica specifically, and things that we know the community is looking for and love, and things that we’re looking to introduce them to, titles that we as Barnes & Noble love and are looking to talk to everybody else about,” she said. “We really just want to connect the right person with the right book. We want to treat it like a local bookstore. We want to treat every customer that’s coming in like a regular, like somebody we want to see every single day.”

When asked how Barnes & Noble might attract the previous Midnight Special clientele, Abel said, “We’ve got everything. We’ve got a book for everybody. We will be curating displays to appeal to a diverse and wide variety of clientele, whether it’s your beach reader … or somebody that wants something heavily literary, or somebody that wants something that nobody else has read before. We’re hoping to have it all and to match everybody with what they’re looking for.”

Though space limitations did not allow the inclusion of a café, customers are welcome to bring in drinks and snacks, said Janine Flanigan, Director of Store Planning and Design, and she described an assortment of cozy seating options scattered throughout the store, including cushions and colorful chairs in the children’s area.

Abel also eagerly anticipates hosting a variety of community and celebrity events in the future, similar to Midnight Special’s open mic nights.

Heather Wozniak, a former English graduate student at UCLA, vividly recalls the community events held at Midnight Special around 2002-2004.

“When my husband [Luke Brannon] and I were first dating, we used to go to Midnight Special regularly for the poetry open mics,” she said. “He would read his work, and there were a lot of other regulars, and sometimes we got invited to after-parties at weird apartments in Venice. It was never quite my crowd, but my husband liked it, and I’ve never been to such well-attended poetry open mics anywhere else.”

A fellow English graduate student at UCLA during the same era, Martin Griffin remembers another side of the independent bookstore.

“At times, visiting Midnight Special could be a bracing experience, too,” he said. “One evening, I asked a store clerk about a particular book and his look of impatient dismissal made it clear that he regarded me and my reading choices as distinctly below his coolness requirements.”

Midnight Special was founded as a volunteer-run co-op in Venice in 1970, where it supported the civil rights movement and anti-war efforts. It moved to Santa Monica in 1992, where it remained until its closure in 2004, with a brief move from 1318 Third Street to 1450 Second Street. Barnes & Noble spent about two decades on the corner of Wilshire Boulevard and Third Street until its closure in 2017. It is reopening at 1318 Third Street.

Rubin’s career roughly mirrored that of the Midnight Special Bookstore, as he too moved from Venice to Santa Monica in the 1990s. He recalls the generosity of the landlord Wally Marks, who granted the bookstore a reasonable rent, highlighted as a reminder to current owners who hope to see the post-pandemic rejuvenation of the Promenade. He also encourages street performers to return to the Promenade, reminding them that they could become famous, like actor Q’orianka Kilcher, who got her start there.

“She had her sound system stolen when she was 12 years old, and she came up with her mom to my table, and they were in tears,” he said. “I called the L.A. Times, and they did a story about it, and that led to the William Morris Agency seeing that story, and it led to her getting the job playing Pocahontas in the movie The New World with Christian Bale and Colin Farrell.”

Like his ceaseless supply of progressive bumper stickers, which promote “everything to make a better world,” Rubin’s optimism regarding the revival of the Promenade is boundless and indefatigable.

“I think that it’s a safe place, and I think it’s a clean place, and we have good people here,” he said. “It’s going to take time to rebuild, but it’s happening. We have a great location, and it will thrive again. In fact, I’m certain of that.”

Barnes & Noble Grand Reopening!
1318 Third Street Promenade

Santa Monica, CA 90401

Wednesday, August 28, 10:00 a.m.

Featured authors: Olivie Blake, Victoria Aveyard, Marie Lu, Brady Smith

For upcoming events:
https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/store/3469

Photo from Barnes & Noble.