Newburgh Gets a Bookstore

Couple opens first in city in 25 years

Angie Venezia wants to get it right. Along with excitement, she feels the responsibility that comes with opening the first independent bookstore in the City of Newburgh in at least 25 years.

There hasn’t been a bookstore there since Clough’s on Liberty Street closed in the mid-1990s. There is a Barnes and Noble in the Town of Newburgh, but The Barking Goose closed in 2021.

“It’s nerve-wracking,” Venezia admits. “Because bookstores mean so much to many people, it feels like there is so much at stake, especially in a city that doesn’t have one.”

Her store is Golden Hour Books, and it’s a month old, not counting the months before spent with her husband, Reed Loar, scouting a location, rebuilding the interior, adding the furniture he built and placing the initial book orders.

The store’s name came out of a brainstorming process. “I was thinking river, son, horizon,” she says. “I love the ‘golden hour’ in Newburgh. It’s a beautiful time of the day, with the light cutting through the brick buildings. My neighbors here are the friendliest people, thrilled to have a bookstore.”

Venezia and Loar moved to Newburgh three years ago, amid the pandemic shutdown. Venezia, who had spent 14 years in publishing, most recently in publicity for imprints of Knopf Doubleday and Penguin Random House, immediately noticed there was no independent bookstore. She had a thought to open one.

The couple chose Newburgh because they had fallen in love with the city during visits to the Hudson Valley and because the pandemic left Venezia feeling untethered from her New York City-based job with no author tours to plan. In Newburgh, her thoughts turned to bookselling, and what kind of bookstore she wanted to open.

She says her time in the publishing industry gave her a foundation. “I know quite a lot about books that have come out over the past 15 years, and I have a handle on the new books coming out that our customers might be interested in and should read,” she says. “I want to establish our point of view here, and there’s an incredible backlist out there.”

More Local Bookstores

Antipodean Books (Garrison)
29-31 Garrison’s Landing | antipodean.com

Beacon Reads (Beacon)
309 Main St.  |  bit.ly/beacon-reads

Binnacle Books (Beacon)
321 Main St.  |  binnaclebooks.com

Bruised Apple Books (Peekskill)
923 Central Ave. | bruisedapplebooks.com

Field Library Bookstore (Peekskill)
934 South St. | thefieldlibrary.org/library-bookstore

J. Mercurio Books (Garrison)
jmercuriobooks.com

Riverside Books (Nelsonville)
bit.ly/riverside-books

Split Rock Books (Cold Spring)
97 Main St.  |  splitrockbks.com

Finding the right space was an early challenge until a friend who works to pair landlords and tenants “was working with my landlord on trying to brainstorm what types of small businesses this area of Broadway needs,” Venezia says. “It came together from there.”

The building is notable for its outside mural — “We can say, ‘It’s that green building with the mural on the side,’” Venezia notes — and is adjacent to a garden maintained by Heart & Soil florist.

Golden Hour stocks new and used books, which Venezia says makes the store “a place that is affordable but is also somewhere to shop for new releases.” New and used books are shelved together, “which is still unusual, but becoming more and more common,” she says. “It’s nice to be able to run out and buy the hardcover of a book just reviewed by The New York Times while also pulling out something you’ve never heard of before.

“All categories are curated thoughtfully, not in order of any kind of hierarchy, but visually organized,” she says. “The store is a very small space and I intentionally opened without it brimming with books. I wanted to see what customers would want before filling up.”

That there are many books by women is “an organic manifestation of my taste, a reflection of my point of view as a reader. I love championing women authors.”

The children’s area is already popular, and the couple (who have an 18-month-old son) have started a monthly story time in partnership with the Little Friends Learning Loft. (The next one is Oct. 28.) Sci-fi and fantasy has been a good seller, along with cookbooks and food writing. “It’s gratifying to have people come in, tell me what books they’re reading, and suggest what I should sell in the store,” Venezia says.

Golden Hour is also working with Newburgh Brewing (for a November event) and the Newburgh Library, and is planning to partner with local charities, host writer talks (the first is Nov. 2 with novelist Isle McElroy, author of People Collide) and “get the wheels turning on some book clubs,” Venezia says.

For now, she’s taking it slowly as she gathers feedback. “I’m glad I took time and waited for people to say what they liked before fully stocking the store. It’s a huge risk, opening a small business anywhere. There have been many moments in this process where I’ve overthought and second-guessed myself, but the main lesson I’ve learned is to just trust your gut. I eventually wound up not deviating much from my plans at the start. Now that we’ve opened all those instincts have been reaffirmed.”

Golden Hour Books, at 181 Broadway in Newburgh, is open from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday and Friday and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Visit goldenhourbookstore.com or call 845-787-4185.