New chapter opens for popular New York City bookstore, Rizzoli

NEW YORK (WABC) -- A Manhattan bookstore that spent nearly three decades in the same Midtown location has found a new home.

Since 1964, Rizzoli Bookstore has been selling the kind of books you want to hold in your hands and keep on your coffee table.

But last year, plans for a skyscraper toppled Rizzoli from its home on West 57th Street.

"It was devastating to leave our home, it had been our home for 29 years. It was a beautiful space," said Cynthia Conigliaro of Rizzoli.

She looked at 100 spaces before finding a spot in NoMad, a new chapter for Rizzoli.

"They could have very easily said, you know, retail, bricks and mortar, rent, payroll, all the headaches..you open a bookstore for the love and passion, not because you are going to make a million dollars," said Conigliaro.

But shoppers are coming. The chandeliers and bookcases are the same, and the covers continue to lure you in.

From a book on government buildings, to earrings, to images of people just floating.

There's a section for books on New York, one on cars, one on architecture and of course, fashion.

And it's where you'll find the ultimate gift, like a Giorgio Armani book, a collectors item, numbered and signed, that sells for $350.

"We want people to feel joy when they walk in," said Rizzoli's Kate Hutchison. "It's so fascinating to be here in the middle of the day and see businessmen walk in who need that sort of break throughout the day to be around books, and it's just thrilling to see that people get just as much joy and pleasure out of books now as they ever did."

And that speaks to the fact that this is the story of a bookstore opening, not closing as so many have already done.

"The pendulum is swinging back," said Conigliaro. "Yes, Amazon was a disruptive, distribution new mechanism for getting books into people's hands and it's valuable. But nothing can replicate the experience of walking into a bookstore and feeling the passion of the buyer."

Rizzoll is located at 1133 Broadway, between 25th and 26th Streets.