Real estate prices have won. They've routed the socialists and killed words on the page in Newtown.

Gould's Book Arcade, for 50 years the last word for Sydney's discerning left-wing readers, has been priced out of gentrifying King Street, its future uncertain.

Natalie Gould (left) and her mother Mairi Petersen (right) fear the end is looming for their bookshop, Gould's Book Arcade, in Newtown. Credit:Kate Geraghty

"Books have little place in the lives of people moving into Newtown these days," said Mairi Petersen, the first wife of bookshop founder, the late Bob Gould.

"Once Newtown was students and the working class. No more. Now they are paying millions to buy in and when you look at real estate agent photographs of houses for sale there is not a book to be seen."