Leonard Riggio (1941-2024)
Longtime Barnes & Noble head LEONARD RIGGIO, 83, died August 27, 2024 in Manhattan. He had Alzheimer’s.
Leonard Stephen Riggio was born February 28, 1941 in New York, and attended Brooklyn Technical High School. After graduating in 1958, he took night classes at NYU for a while before dropping out. He founded a small bookshop, the Student Book Exchange, in 1965. In 1971, he purchased New York bookshop Barnes & Noble. He oversaw the company’s transformation into a nationwide concern, acquiring hundreds of bookshops, including the entire B. Dalton and Doubleday chains. He believed in selling a vast inventory at low prices, and was an early adopter of the ‘‘superstore’’ model in the 1990s, expanding his inventory beyond books into music, toys, games, and other products, along with seating and coffee shops that encouraged customers to spend more time in store. He was a controversial among independent bookstore owners, some of whom believed he used his outsized influence to gain unfair competitive advantage. He stepped down as CEO in 2002, but remained chairman, resigning that role in 2019 after selling the chain to a hedge fund. B&N and UK chain Waterstones are now owned by the same company, both run by James Daunt.
Riggio is survived by Louise Gebbia, his wife of more than 40 years, their daughter, two daughters from a previous marriage, and four grandsons.
