Atomic Books is expanding in Hampden.
Owners Rachel Whang and Benn Ray announced this week that the independent bookstore will grow by taking over the second floor of its current location at 3620 Falls Road.
“Atomic Books, this fall, will be tripling our current size,” Ray said in an email message.
Specializing in alternative comics, small press literature, underground zines, graphic novels, independent music and pop-culture memorabilia, Atomic Books opened in 1992 and has been at its current location for 20 years.
It’s known internationally as the place where Baltimore writer and filmmaker John Waters gets his fan mail and has his local book-signing events, which draw lines that wrap around the block. It also has a small bar, called Eightbar, where visitors can grab a drink while browsing.
“Our tagline has always been, ‘Literary Finds for Mutated Minds,’” Ray said in his email message. “We simply need more room to carry the sorts of things we like to carry. So we’re taking over the second floor of our building, and we’ll be filling it with even more ‘Literary Finds for Mutated Minds.’”
Ray, who is the President of the Hampden Village Merchants Association, said the expansion will open this fall in a space that once contained a bowling alley with seven lanes. It most recently housed a dance studio.
Ray said the bookstore currently occupies about 2,000 square feet of space, including Eightbar, and will grow to occupy 6,600 square feet of space. He said the plans are, at least initially, to have the second floor open on weekends and by appointment while the first floor remains open the way it has been. After that, he said, “we’ll adjust accordingly.”
The expansion of Atomic Books is a positive development for a commercial district that discourages chains and has lost some of its long-time merchants since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It also comes as at least one bookstore chain is making a comeback, with Barnes & Noble planning to open a store in Harbor East after closing its Inner Harbor branch in August of 2020.
“Since Barnes & Noble is moving back into the city, we decided to expand to welcome them,” Ray quipped.
