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Schwartz Bookshops to Close After 82 Years
By Evan Rytlewski
Express Milwaukee
Monday, January 19, 2009

Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, one of the largest and oldest independent chains in Wisconsin, survived the Great Depression but wasn’t able to overcome titanic changes in the retail sector, exacerbated by the current economic crisis. Following years of disappointing sales and a brutal 2008, after eight decades in business the chain will close its remaining four locations on March 31.

“Business has been rough for a number of years now,” said Schwartz President Carol Grossmeyer. “Then the market fell apart and it was such a dismal holiday season that we decided we really needed to end it in the first quarter of the year, that we weren’t going to make it beyond that.”

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