Petrelis Files

Queer Socialist Bookstore Reopens
in San Francisco's Mission District

My partner and I have been longtime shoppers at our local queer socialist bookstore, Modern Times, which until recently was located on Valencia Street and just a few blocks from our apartment. When word circulated a few months back that the store was closing, we were relieved to learn that rumors of its imminent demise were greatly exaggerated.

This venerable institution not only sold books, magazines and newspapers, and greeting cards, it also housed a meeting room in the back that served the needs of many alternative constituencies and was just a great place to sit in a comfy chair, read, and meet or make new friends.

Very much unlike the now-shuttered gay bookstore on Castro Street, A Different Light, which long before its well-deserved demised ignored the reading habits and needs of its clientele.

It's my pleasure to announce that Modern Times is still with us, albeit in a new location, and very much still in the Mission. I was near its new home today, and it was closed for a bit of urgent fixing-up, but otherwise is open and ready for your business. I'll be back at the store this weekend to purchase a few publications and show my financial support for this business.

Here are excerpts from the announcement heralding the move:

Modern Times Bookstore Collective is happy to announce our re-opening at 2919 - 24th Street on June 1st. We have been setting up at our new location for the month of May, and are very excited to share our new space with the book-loving community. We are now located on 24th Street (between Florida and Alabama), sharing a space with Galeria Paloma in the old China Books/Live Fit Gym location.

The actual space is a little smaller, but we will continue to have a wide range of new and used books, as well as many community events such as the Spanish Book Club. Please come by, enjoy our books and events, and help us celebrate our new location.

Modern Times has been a Mission district-based, collectively-run bookstore since 1971. Our goal is to be a community resource for the neighborhood, as well as for Bay Area radicals and progressives. At our new location, we have the same selection of English and Spanish books, as well as (but limited to) a large fiction and poetry selection, children's books, political and academic titles, resources for activists and the radical/progressive communities, queer and sex books, small press and independent publishers, local author consignments, California and travel books, gardening and cookbooks, and much more. ...

What's not to like? Support this local, progressive bookstore today.