The popular Unabridged Bookstore in Chicago’s East Lakeview community celebrated 45 years in business this weekend.
The bookstore at 3251 N. Broadway invited customers to stop in and celebrate with a new book. Unabridged also shared photos from throughout the years documenting book signings by authors from Quentin Crisp to Michael Moore, shots of the staff, moments at the Chicago Pride Parade, and an event with Mayor Harold Washington.
Owner Ed Devereux opened Unabridged on Saturday, Nov. 1, 1980 — three days before Ronald Reagan was first elected president. Jane Byrne was mayor of Chicago, and the community where Unabridged is located was popularly known as New Town.
Numerous bookstores have come and gone in the East Lakeview area 45 years since Unabridged opened. A mammoth Borders bookstore opened about five blocks to the south at Diversey Parkway, Clark, and Broadway in 1995 — only to close along with the whole company went out of business in 2011. But Unabridged has hung on and thrived throughout the years.
Unabridged is known in particular for its staff that offer handwritten personal recommendations, its award-winning children’s section, its travel book and calendar rooms, its sale books, and especially its selection of LGBTQ+ literature.
Unabridged also hosts an assortment of book clubs.
“It’s safe to say that Unabridged is the only bookstore in the Chicago area where a shopper can buy the latest issue of a gay magazine, a copy of children’s classic Goodnight Moon, or newest title, and pick up the latest literary fiction and non-fiction sensation, all in one stop,” the Lakeview East Chamber of Commerce says.