Remembering Kay's Bookstore in Cleveland, Ohio

 

It's a rainy day and on a rainy day it sure is nice read a book while you're feeling snug and warm and it's all wet and cold outside. Here's the exterior of Kay's Books, a Cleveland landmark bookstore for many years -- now gone. I remember taking the old Rapid Transit train from the East Side, getting off at the last stop, Terminal Tower, walking along Euclid Avenue, past the May Co. and Higbee's and entering the Colonial Arcade. Inside the Arcade, after a stop into to Tony Isabella's Cosmic Comics, I would walk out of the other side, on shady Superior Avenue, cross the street and into Kay's. Kay's had floors of books and magazines. So much to look at and ponder about. I still have some books I bought there as a teenager, in particular some Harlan Ellison paperbacks and some early Winsor McCay collections. This mammoth bookstore has, by now, been gone for a while. It still exists in my memory as a place to browse and discover. There is nothing better than a leisurely bookstore browse session on a rainy day.