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Thursday, September 24, 2009

Paper, please: A newsstand opens in Echo Park *

If everyone is buying, selling, reading and doing everything else online, somebody forgot to tell Echo Park business owners. The past year has seen the opening of retro retailers like a bookstore -Stories - and a record shop - Origami Vinyl - despite the explosion of online book and music sales. Now, another old school business has opened its doors in Echo Park, the Mohawk Newsstand on Mohawk Street north of Sunset Boulevard. Tucked into what looks like a former one-car garage behind The Coffee Pot cafe, the Mohawk Newstand is owned by Neil Forn, a Woodland Hills resident and businessman with a love of magazines. He opened the spot in partnership with the owners of the Coffee Pot, which will also make room for one of his magazine racks.

Echo Park used to have a large newsstand that once stretched along what is now a medical clinic at the northwest corner of Echo Park Avenue and Sunset Boulevard. What's left is a much smaller news hut of sorts that sells many Spanish-language publications. There's another small newsstand on Sunset Boulevard west of Alvarado. The Mohawk Newsstand, however, is much larger, stocking more than 200 titles that seem to appeal to every neighborhood niche. Some of the specialty titles include Vanidades, Pilates Style, Taost, Low Rider, Tattoo and Cesar's (of Dog Whisperer fame).

"People still want to buy magazines," said Forn, who is a fan of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. "Print is not completely dead yet."

* Correction: Previous versions of this post misspelled the owner's last name as Form. The correct spelling is Forn.

2 comments:

  1. Everybody get out there and support Mr. Form! The internet certainly has its place, and is an invaluable tool in dispensing real-time information. But there's nothing like sitting down with a magazine or book and thumbing through the paper pages. I hope he does well.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds great.

    What are the hours?

    ReplyDelete