The Last Bookstore

The Last Bookstore is an independent bookstore located at 453 S Spring Street, Downtown Los Angeles. Conde Nast Traveler called it California’s largest new and used bookstore.

History
The store was founded in 2005 by Josh Spencer, the first incarnation being inside a Downtown Los Angeles loft. While here, the store sold books and other items online, then, in December 2009, it opened a bookstore at 4th and Main Street. The bookstore moved to its current 22,000 sq. ft. location in the Spring Arts Tower at 5th and Spring Street on June 3, 2011. The current store, a former bank, contains two floors and also includes the bank's former vault.

Vox reported that the store creates visual merchandising through creative displays and book sculptures, which attracts Instagram users, "in the hope of trying to convert Instagram visitors into book purchasers."

In 2021, the bookstore installed a plant wall to the famous book tunnel. The store also features a restaurant: Yuko Kitchen.

Media
Filmmaker Chad Howitt chronicled The Last Bookstore and its owner, Spencer, in a short documentary titled Welcome to the Last Bookstore, released in 2016. It tells the story of how Spencer was injured as a young man and lost the use of his legs, forcing him to re-examine his life. Los Angeles Film Review called the effort an "ode to resilience."

In popular culture
The bookstore appeared in the 2014 David Fincher movie Gone Girl, and also in the 2018 movie Under the Silver Lake, directed by David Robert Mitchell.

The bookstore featured in the 2021 Netflix series Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel.