Borders has gone the way of Tower Records, Hollywood Video, Virgin Megastore, and Blockbuster, but happily,
“the best locally-owned purveyors of physical media seem to be in better shape than the soulless megachains. San Francisco’s Amoeba Music, Le Video, and Green Apple Books, for instance, are sprawling, wonderfully quirky independents that are still very much with us.”
See Harry McCracken’s “Decline and Fall of Physical Media Retailing: A Timeline” in Technologizer (Feb 17, 2011)
See also New York Magazine’s list of independent bookstores in Manhattan.