DC's Lambda Rising Closing its Doors

DC Agenda reports that DC's LGBT landmark bookstore Lambda Rising will be closing its doors at the end of the month after 35 years. The bookstore was always a hub activity where the DC queer community could find countless volumes of LGBT literary works, the Washington Blade and other gay newspapers from around the country.

Lambda Rising was always our first stop in the late 70's, when Charles and I went into DC on Friday Nights. We'd park on a side street, pick up a Blade to see what was going on around town, then bar-hop around DuPont Circle for a few hours before heading across town to the Lost and Found or Traxx. It was where I covered a book signing by comedian/actress/singer/author Sandra Bernhard (Love, Love and Love) in 1993 when I did some freelance writing for Michael's Homo Weekly.

From DC Agenda:

Lambda Rising, a bookstore serving the LGBT community in the nation’s capital for 35 years, is closing its D.C. store in Dupont Circle and its remaining out-of-town store in Rehoboth Beach, Del., in January.

The closings, announced Friday, mark the end of the city’s only exclusively LGBT bookstore and becomes another in a series of gay bookstores that have closed in recent years in other cities, including New York and Baltimore.

Deacon Maccubbin, 66, the store’s founder and co-owner, told D.C. Agenda in an exclusive interview that he plans to retire soon and that he and co-owner Jim Bennett, his domestic partner of 32 years, decided they would rather close the stores than sell them to a new owner who might change their focus and mission.

“The phrase ‘mission accomplished’ has gotten a bad rap in recent years but in this case, it certainly applies,”Maccubbin said.

Read the full story at DCAgenda.com.