How Queens Became a Bookstore Desert, and How that Can Change

Booksellers Vina Castillo, Natalie Noboa, and Holly Nikodem first met at the Forest Hill Barnes and Noble. They met again when the store was closing—the three women returned to B&N’s Forest Hills location at the end of 2015 intending to say goodbye to the store and reminisce with fellow coworkers. They weren’t planning on opening a new bookstore, but that was before the three realized that without the B&N, Queens—a borough with a population of close to 2.3 million