A Postscript to the Scribes Bookshop Closure

Back in December 2020, one of Dunedin’s local icons was closing its doors. Scribes Bookshop:



https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2020/12/03/dunedin-bookwormery-mourns-the-demise-of-scribes-bookshop/



It’s a strange thing to explain to people outside Dunedin – a secondhand bookshop, of all things, forming a part of North Dunedin cultural identity. But such was Scribes, and such is, well, Dunedin. We’re both a well-educated place and a declining place. Decay is as much a part of Dunedin as the University itself – indeed, a local pub is itself closing after 160 years. The pub is actually just along the road from where I used to live ( https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/time-called-carisbrook-hotel ).



In the last two and a half years, matters have taken their course. The site that once housed Scribes Bookshop is now a gravel-covered vacant space, surrounded by a plain wooden fence. Whether anything will actually be done with it, or whether it will sit there, like the ruins of Carisbrook, is a mystery ( https://phuulishfellow.wordpress.com/2017/05/01/the-ruins-of-carisbrook/ ).



I write this, because I happened to be passing the post-Scribes area this afternoon. And there, hanging over the fence, was a small protest sign. Not just any protest sign either – it was a sign made from a book cover with the pages removed. The sign itself just read ‘RIP Scribes. Down with Landlord Vandalism,’ as written in red paint (and it’s a shame I didn’t have my phone with me, to take a photo). But the book that supplied the cover?



This one:











A gravel-covered vacancy (that once was Scribes) as comparable to the ruins of ancient churches, temples, and monasteries? That’s a peculiar tribute to a secondhand bookshop, and arguably a more profound protest comment than the sign’s actual wording.