Uncle Edgar’s Gets Its Stock in Order

Last month we brought you the happy news that Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore and Uncle Edgar’s Mystery Bookstore, twin Minneapolis institutions that had burned down in May 2020, were open once more. Now comes word, via blogger Bill Selnes, that Uncles proprietor Don Blyly is “getting close to having all the used mystery trade paperback[s] listed on Abebooks.com and put out on our shelves. There are currently about 1,500 used mystery trade paperbacks on the shelves,” Blyly explains in an update, “and we hope in the next couple of weeks to finish listing the rest of our current stock, and then be able to start buying mystery trade paperbacks. It will be a lot longer before we will be able to start buying used mystery hardcovers (but we can still accept donations and put them in the basement for a while if you have to clear some out of your home or storage locker).” Meanwhile, new signage and awnings are finally going up on the outside of the Uncles’ new building.

Past updates can be found on the Uncles’ GoFundMe page.

“The Uncles” Are Both Back

This is great news! I hope the Bouchercon attendees now in Minnesota’s Twin Cities will avail themselves of the opportunity to visit this resurrected enterprise. From Shelf Awareness:

Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore in Minneapolis, Minn., which was burned down in May 2020 during the unrest following the murder of George Floyd, has fully reopened in its new location, CBS News reported.

Owner Don Blyly has moved the science fiction bookstore, along with its mystery-focused counterpart Uncle Edgar’s, to a building at 2716 E. 31st St. It is across the street from Minneapolis indie Moon Palace Books and roughly two miles from the building that burned in May 2020.

The new store opened to the public on a limited basis on August 14, and on Tuesday opened with regular hours. Blyly told CBS that he lost some 200,000 books in the fire and is still rebuilding the inventory. Most of the store’s new inventory has arrived, and about 95% of the store’s used book inventory has come from his own personal collection.

The new space is about 20% smaller than the previous location, and as a result Uncle Hugo's will cut down some categories of used books, including paranormal romance, submarine adventure novels and a lot of true crime books. The store has resumed buying used books, and it will host its first author event in more than two years on Saturday, with Mike Kupari (Trouble Walked In).

You can read more about the shop’s long-awaited reopening here.

“The Uncles” Rise from the Ashes

I was saddened to learn, back in early June of 2020, that Uncle Edgar’s Mystery Bookstore—one of my favorite stops during visits to Minneapolis, Minnesota—had been burned down. The blaze was reportedly started by “rioting vandals (not protesters),” during demonstrations in that city following the police-assisted killing of a 46-year-old Black man named George Floyd.

Don Blyly, who owned Uncle Edgar’s as well as its conjoined sister enterprise, Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore, said at the time that his business had already been suffering, due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the fire might be the last straw. He wasn’t sure it would be possible to reopen what he called “the Uncles.” Nonetheless, a GoFundMe campaign was launched on the bookstores’ behalf; it has since raised $194,101 of its $500,000 goal.

Now comes more good news, courtesy of In Reference to Murder:

Don Blyly, owner of Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore and Uncle Edgar’s Mystery Bookstore in Minneapolis … has found a new site for the stores. The new building is about two miles east of the old location and a short block and a half from Moon Palace Books [a general-interest independent bookstore at 3032 Minnehaha Avenue]. Blyly noted that “the Moon Palace people and I believe that having two bookstores with such different selections so close will do good things for both stores.” Blyly sold the stores' destroyed old site and has some insurance money. … Blyly hopes to open for business in June.”

It seems likely that Uncle Edgar’s will take some while to rebuild its stock; after the fire, the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal estimated the two shops “contained over 100,000 used and new volumes.” And of course, some of the choicest vintage works in its collection will never be recovered. But it brings a smile to my face knowing that the next time I’m in Minneapolis—probably in 2023—I can stop by Uncle Edgar’s again and spend a couple of hours looking for treasures that really belong on my own shelves.

Red Tape Impedes Uncle Edgar’s Recovery

As I noted in early June, one of the casualties of the Minneapolis protests that followed George Floyd’s police-assisted killing in that city was Uncle Edgar’s Mystery Bookstore. The commercial shopfront in which that establishment had operated for four decades, alongside its sister enterprise, the slightly older Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore, was burned to the ground by rioting vandals (not protesters) in the early morning hours of Saturday, May 30. Owner Don Blyly couldn’t say at the time whether he would reopen his much-loved conjoined shops, but a GoFundMe campaign was launched soon afterward to raise funds needed to make that possible. (At last check, $166,762 had been promised toward a $500,000 goal.)

Now Blyly is facing another recovery hurdle, this one of the distinctly bureaucratic sort. Today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune explains:

In Minneapolis, on a desolate lot where Don Blyly’s bookstore stood before being destroyed in the May riots, two men finish their cigarettes and then walk through a dangerous landscape filled with slippery debris and sharp objects. The city won’t let Blyly haul away his wreckage without a permit, and he can’t get a contractor to tell him how much it will cost to rebuild the store until that happens.

In [neighboring] St. Paul, where Jim Stage’s pharmacy burned down during the same disturbances, crews have already removed the bricks and scorched timbers. A steel fence keeps out trespassers. Stage expects construction of his new Lloyd’s Pharmacy to begin later this month.

The main reason for the different recoveries is simple: Minneapolis requires owners to prepay the second half of their 2020 property taxes in order to obtain a demolition permit. St. Paul does not.

“Minneapolis has not been particularly friendly toward business for some time,” said Blyly, who prepaid $8,847 in taxes last week but still hasn’t received his demolition permit. “They say they want to be helpful, but they certainly have not been.”

City officials say their hands are tied, pointing to a state
law that prohibits the removal of any structures or standing timber until all of the taxes assessed against the building have been fully paid. ...

Local business owners are appalled by the finger-pointing, noting that nearly 100 properties in Minneapolis were destroyed or severely damaged in the riots ... The vast majority of those properties are either still standing or have been turned into ugly and often dangerous piles of rubble. Owners say the lack of progress is discouraging reinvestment and sending customers to other parts of the metro.

You can read the complete Star Tribune piece here.

“The Uncles” Consumed by Flames

My best friend from college, Byron Rice, lives with his family in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Over the decades, every time I’ve visited Byron there, he and I have made a special point of swinging by Uncle Edgar’s Mystery Bookstore (at 2864 Chicago Avenue South) to browse and, more often than not, buy fistfuls of books. While the ridiculously overstuffed shop offered new books, it was usually the old paperbacks that drew my attention. Thanks to Uncle Edgar’s, my collection has beefed up to include vintage yarns by Robert Terrall, Thomas B. Dewey, Harold Q. Masur, Richard Dougherty, and many other writers.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic pretty much shut down air travel worldwide, I’d been planning to fly out to Minneapolis early this month and spend a week there. Trips to Uncle Edgar’s as well as to Once Upon a Crime were, of course, on the agenda. Needless to say, I had to scrap those plans altogether as the pandemic worsened.

(Right) Uncle Edgar’s stuffed its shelves full of wonders.

And now comes worse news, from The Gumshoe Site: “Uncle Edgar’s Mystery Bookstore and its sister store, Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore, two of the most famous genre bookstores in America, were torched and burned down by rioting vandals (not protesters) in the very early morning of Saturday, May 30, in … the wake of the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.” The Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal points out that those twin shops, located in the same modest “century-old commercial storefront,” were “located on Chicago Avenue just one block north of Lake Street and about nine blocks north of the intersection where Floyd died.” As Byron informs me, such a location put them too near the protest zone to be safe from spillover violence.

Publishers Weekly provides this account of the destruction:

On Saturday, owner Don Blyly posted on the store’s website under the headline, “Uncle Hugo’s and Uncle Edgar’s Foully Slain,” the same statement he sent employees and posted on Facebook earlier that day: vandals had broken all the windows in the two stores and then squirted accelerant through them. By the time he arrived on the scene in the wee hours of Saturday morning, both stores were too full of smoke for him to save anything. Buildings on both sides of the street were burning as “dozens of people were dancing around.”

“No sign of any cops, national guard troops, or any help,” Blyly wrote. “I’m pretty sure the insurance policy excludes damage from a civil insurrection, so I suspect I won’t get a cent for either the building or the contents.”

Blyly founded Uncle Hugo’s in 1974, and six years later opened Uncle Edgar’s. They eventually became major attractions for readers.

The Business Journal explains: “‘The Uncles,’ as Blyly refers to the stores, contained over 100,000 used and new volumes when they burned. There were rare signed editions and decades of collectibles. He estimated the retail value at around $1 million.” That publication adds that even before the recent Minneapolis riots, Blyly’s business was in trouble. “Like many retailers, Blyly was already struggling due to the coronavirus pandemic, which had prevented him from opening his stores to walk-in traffic since March. Four of his six employees had gone on unemployment, returning to work not long before the stores were destroyed. While Blyly worked long hours to fill mail orders alone during the shutdown, cashflow was limited. He estimated he owes publishers about $50,000 for books delivered before the fire.”

It’s not yet clear whether Blyly will rebuild his conjoined bookstores. However, he’s been told that—fortunately—his insurance policy for the structure and its inventory will indeed cover his loss, though it may not provide him with sufficient funds for reconstruction. “In the meantime,” the Business Journal reports, “Blyly plans to run a small mail-order business out of his home. He’ll start by selling Uncle Hugo’s and Uncle Edgar’s branded T-shirts and sweatshirts; he recently ordered a two-year supply.” A GoFundMe campaign (with a whopping $500,000 goal!) has also been launched to assist Blyly in whatever direction he decides to take his business.

Check the stores’ Facebook page for news updates.