Thanks to a severe financial drought pervading the Clarke household, my summer activities this year included a walk along the boardwalk at Coney Island, two weekends in Vermont, and a visit to the world’s oldest book shop in Bethlehem, PA. That wasn’t the actual purpose of the trip; I was visiting family. Not finding a whole lot to do in the town that calls itself Christmas City, we took a stroll down Main Street where the Moravian Book Shop stands. Founded in 1745, and operating in its current location since 1871, it earned the coveted title of the country’s (and possibly the world’s) oldest continuously operating book store when John Smith & Son closed in 2000.

I must admit, I was mildly excited (I was in Bethlehem, remember) by the prospect of popping in and browsing the dusty leatherbound volumes, mostly classics, where countless academics and great thinkers before me had presumably come to enlightened conclusions about timely matters. I envisioned uneven wooden floors, sunlight catching the centuries-old dust as it streamed in through window panes of that thick, wavy glass you tend to see in old places. Perhaps there would portraits of intelligentsia past and present hanging on the walls.

“As you can see, it’s become a bit commercialized,” my sister-in-law chuckled as we walked in. She wasn’t kidding. Instead of the ceiling-high shelves laden with volumes displaying their titles in gold print on their spines that I’d imagined, the walls were bare. There was no ladder-on-wheels to reach the very high-up ones (presumably the Faulkners that you’d have to really, really want to read in order to go all the way up there). In fact, there weren’t any books in visible range at all. It was a gift shop.

Upon first taking in that odd, but kind of standard collection of knick knacks one finds in a gift shop - funky wallets, phenomenally expensive day planners, fluffy pens and plastic necklaces - I decided that the books must be located in the back of the surprisingly large store. After tripping over a life-sized stuffed Rottweiler whose purpose I could not determine, I made my way to the back of the store, through a section containing heftily-priced nightgowns and an astonishing array of lavender scented toiletries, to find myself in a coffee shop selling gourmet foods, and beyond that an inexplicable section that was selling Christmas decorations in July.

Now don’t get me wrong: all of these items were very nice and it would probably be a great place to get your Christmas shopping done. I was just a bit disappointed to find no tangible evidence of history - or even any books - in the country’s oldest book store. (To be fair, I think there were books of the Barnes & Noble variety on the lower level, but I found myself distracted by an enormous pepper mill shaped like a golf ball and never made it down there.)

An hour later I emerged, having spent $16.95 on The Wine Lover’s Companion Book, which was essentially a notepad where I could record notes about wine that I had enjoyed. It was about the closest thing to an actual book I could find on the main floor. Feeling a little cheated, I began to question why I am so bothered when historical sites aren’t preserved in their original form. I am all for progress, but it has always seemed such a shame to me to strip places of whatever characteristics made them of historical value in the first place, and then rather silly to then tout them for that historical value.

For instance, when I lived in Boston, I was invariably surprised when I alighted the (country’s oldest) subway at State Street only to find that the station itself resided in The Old State House. As the former home of the British Government in Boston, and the site of the reading of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, it always seemed to me that it ought to now hold something a bit more significant than a subway. On a side note, across the street from this is the site of the famed Boston Massacre, which is now a traffic island.

In New York, public outcry at such developments tends to be somewhat more common, and usually concerns business with an importance that is more cultural than historical, such as the demise of Tower Records, a corporation that had stood for a whopping twenty years. Another example is the forced closure of the famed CBGB’s nightclub which was reported across the country, or of the Chelsea Hotel, former home to Syd and Nancy, Bob Dylan and Janis Joplin, which made headlines this summer when its longtime manager was replaced by a major hotelier that specializes in turning historic places into high-end inns. This news came much to the disgust of those who view the hotel’s decrepitude as inspirational “shabby chic.”

It is these last two examples that have made me begin to rethink my nostalgic aversion to revamping historic sites. From what I’ve seen of it, the decaying Chelsea could probably use a facelift in order to continue legally operating as a hotel, and CBGB’s hadn’t been making a significant contribution to the music scene in years, if not decades, when it finally closed its doors. The final week’s lineup included performances by Bad Brains, The Dictators, Avail, Bouncing Souls, and the only act I have ever heard of, Blondie, was also twenty years past any kind of significance. And the capitalist deep inside me realizes that the Moravian Bookstore probably would have crumbled away years ago if not for the happy tourist buying overpriced ornaments. As for Boston, who wants to commemorate a massacre anyway?

What I’ve realized is that cultural significance itself is relative. We need to pick our battles when it comes to preserving history, and allow the rest to become a tourist trap. Nostalgia alone cannot sustain us; in fact it tends to be nostalgia that hinders progress. So I will just have to make do with taking one last look back, and then looking forward to the next bookshop or venue or hotel that will inspire a generation. Besides, I’ve just read about a 120-year-old church up in British Columbia was recently turned into a winery, so I need to go and start planning my trip up there so I can being filling out The Wine Lover’s Companion Book.

–Julia Clarke