What Boulder Bookstore is known for

David Bolduc founded the Boulder Bookstore in 1973 with ten bookcases and five staff at 1133 Pearl Street. Since 1991 it has occupied the Cheney Block of 1899 at 1107 Pearl, on the corner of 11th Street on the pedestrian mall. More than 100,000 titles fill three floors. The upstairs ballroom, once a dance hall, hosts more than 150 author events a year.

Boulder Bookstore opened in 1973 at 1133 Pearl Street. Founder David Bolduc started with ten bookcases and five employees in the front of a building shared with a Mexican import store and a basement plant shop. In 1991 the store moved along Pearl to the Cheney Block, built in 1899. The building was renamed the Buckingham Block in 1905, as the stone at the top still reads. Bolduc hired a feng shui consultant to place the entrance and the office during the remodel. He fitted a tin ceiling on the main floor to match the building's period while saving energy. The Upper North Room, acquired in 1994, is known as the Annex. The store now employs about fifty people across 20,000 square feet and three floors. It stocks more than 100,000 titles, with a used-book department and an out-of-print service. It reports its bestsellers to the New York Times and the Denver Post. The ballroom upstairs was used from 1899 for lodge meetings and dances, with the orchestra in the mezzanine where the offices now sit. Later a Buddhist congregation met there. It now hosts more than 150 author events a year. The stained glass in its north windows was made to match the original west pair. Bolduc once organised readings for Allen Ginsberg when the poet lived in Boulder. He was a founding member of the Boulder Independent Business Alliance. The corner of Pearl and 11th was once called Pearl and Fight for the bars that stood there.