I remember when Paperbacks Plus, the last independent bookstore in the Bronx, shut its doors. When my boss rolled down the metal shutters for the final time on her storefront in Riverdale—the affluent area that has always had a fractious history with the rest of the borough—every neighborhood mourned its loss. Customers would trek from all over the borough—from Hunts Point, Williamsbridge, and City Island just for the opportunity to grab the latest Murakami, to discuss Michael Chabon’s newest title, or to pore over Paul Auster’s expansive Brooklyn landscapes. Some patrons would take three buses and a subway before climbing the steep hill to get to our store—all in the pursuit of a new book and, most importantly, to talk about their love of reading with the staff, many of whom had relationships with them that spanned decades.

We closed in 2008, leaving one small Barnes & Noble in far-flung Co-Op City remaining as the sole bookseller in the entire borough—home to 1.4 million people, more than 10 colleges, and a household median income of only $34,300. Earlier this week, this one improbable, inaccessible bookstore announced it would be shutting down come January, leaving the nation’s poorest urban county bereft of its last bookstore. Following a quick and ardent campaign, executives reversed their decisions yesterday, announcing the store would stay open for two more years.

The Bronx was my home for 10 years. Manhattan College brought me to the borough I hadn’t dared visit during my Long Island childhood, save for a trip to the Zoo or the Botanical Garden. I had a disjointed relationship with the Bronx from the beginning; my college didn’t fit in with its neighborhood, and its sheltered students kept themselves far afield from their poorer, underprivileged neighbors. What resulted was a self-contained oasis of intellectual pursuit that spanned two disparate neighborhoods; a school half-built in Riverdale’s affluent backyard, and half-alongside the more diverse, and potentially dangerous Kingsbridge. I moved off-campus to Kingsbridge the summer after my freshman year, taking a job at a small independent bookstore “up the hill” soon thereafter.

Paperbacks Plus provided me with my first interaction with true Bronxites—customers with a hardscrabble work ethic who also craved Bret Easton Ellis. Young teens with thick Dominican accents that lined up for midnight Harry Potter releases. Holocaust survivors who came in to talk about Tova Mirvis and the search for modern Jewish identity. Within the bookstore, all patrons were equal. The dichotomy between Kingsbridge, Riverdale, and the class implications that came with zip code and race distinctions dissipated between our bookshelves.

My time spent on campus created a barrier against the borough’s realities of poverty, violence, and generational disenfranchisement. But at the bookstore, I was inculcated with the hard-nosed attitude and dogged persistence that allow Bronx residents to persist, if not always succeed. These patrons loved reading, and didn’t take shit from anyone: They didn’t care if there was only one independent bookstore left in the borough, so long as there was at least one. Bronxites have made due for decades—doing more with less than any other residents in New York City.