Leonard Riggio, who built Barnes & Noble into largest US bookstore chain, dies at 83

Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio, who built a single bookstore into a national powerhouse, passed away in New York City on Tuesday, the company said. He was 83.

Riggio died “following a valiant battle with Alzheimer’s disease,” according to a statement issued by his family.

The brash Riggio’s near-half century reign began in 1971 when he used a $1.2 million loan to purchase Barnes & Noble’s name and the flagship store on lower Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

“His leadership spanned decades, during which he not only grew the company but also nurtured a culture of innovation and a love for reading,” reads a statement from Barnes & Noble.

“Len’s vision and entrepreneurial spirit transformed the retail landscape.”

He acquired hundreds of new stores over the next 20 years and, in the 1990s, launched what became a nationwide empire of “superstores” that combined a chain’s discount prices and massive capacity with the cozy appeal of couches, reading chairs and cafes.

“Our bookstores were designed to be welcoming as opposed to intimidating,” Riggio told The New York Times in 2016. “These weren’t elitist places. You could go in, get a cup of coffee, sit down and read a book for as long as you like, use the restroom. These were innovations that we had that no one thought was possible.”

He took the company public in 1993 and then pushed forward a store-opening spree. Barnes & Noble opened more than one new store a week in 1997. 

“It was a huge leap forward because it helped take hardcovers, which had previously been carriage trade items, into the mass market,” publishing veteran Laurence Kirshbaum said in a 2023 interview. “Barnes & Noble brought reading into living rooms outside of the major urban centers.”

The chain grew so powerful that it was blamed for putting smaller independent bookstores out of business.

“Why am I the predator, but if a nice independent bookstore opens a branch, it’s like welcome to the Messiah?” Riggio told the Wall Street Journal in 1992. “I think every new bookstore should be celebrated, regardless of its pedigree.”

Riggio dedicated his life to literacy, education and the arts, supporting organizations including the Children’s Defense Fund, the Anti-Defamation League and the Dia, a contemporary art museum in upstate Beacon.

He also founded non-profit Project Home Again with his wife, Louise. The charity built and donated 101 homes in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city.

A lifetime New Yorker, Riggio was raised in Brooklyn and attended New York University, where he worked in the college bookstore. 

He dropped out of college in 1965 to open his first bookstore, SBX, or Student Book Exchange.

His father was a cab driver and prize fighter who beat Rocky Graziano twice, perhaps explaining why the bookstore founder was so often described by the media as “feisty” or “gutsy.” 

Riggio lived in a Park Avenue apartment and owned a Tudor-style mansion in Bridgehampton with a sculpture garden. 

He served as grand marshal in the 2017 NYC Columbus Day Parade and rubbed shoulders with pals like singer Tony Bennet and former NYC Mayor David Dinkins.

“My nationality is New York City,” he told Business Week in 1998. “I don’t mean I’m a New Yorker like the New York Times is a New Yorker. I mean it in the Horatio Alger sense.

Barnes & Noble began to take a revenue hit from increased online competition and its failed Nook e-reading device venture in the late 2010s.

Riggio sold the company in 2019 to Elliott, an activist investor group founded by billionaire Paul Singer.

He stepped down from B&N in 2016, remaining upbeat about the company’s future and determined to hold onto his sizable stake despite stiff competition from Amazon and the e-book industry.

“There’s always been gloom and doom about the future of the book business, but it keeps chugging along,” Riggio told The Post in 2016.

He is survived by his wife, three daughters and four grandchildren.