MAGICAL PLACES IN DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES: THE LAST BOOKSTORE
You walk through the streets of downtown that, in 2025, are slowly regaining shape and strength, after a long pandemic period when everything felt dimmer, quieter, almost asleep. And giving back color, warmth, depth, enchantment, and magic to these streets, there is also The Last Bookstore.
Founded in 2005 by Josh Spencer, The Last Bookstore began as a quiet, almost hidden dream—born from a loft, from online sales, from a moment in time when the world seemed to be moving in the opposite direction, away from paper, away from books. In 2011, it found its permanent home inside the historic Spring Arts Tower, a former bank building in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, and from that moment on, it became something far greater than just a bookstore.
You enter a magical place. The moment you step inside, you feel the power of the space.
The incredible quantity of books is perfectly integrated with countless details and objects of every kind. Everything feels intentional. There are furnishings curated to the highest level, filled with small details you only discover by getting closer, by slowing down.
From the very first steps, the space speaks. Signs hang on the walls, half ironic, half solemn, warning you that you are entering something different.
“You are entering the Labyrinth above The Last Bookstore.”
It’s not just a direction—it’s a promise.
There is an integration of art objects, cult objects, with separate rooms and corridors that pull you into a third dimension, as if you were stepping into a film, discovering an entirely new space.
The Labyrinth truly is a labyrinth.
Shelves bend and curve, books form arches, narrow passages force you to slow down. Books are not just content here—they become architecture, living material shaping the space around you.
From the photos we show you from our visit, you can see an enchanted room filled with mystery, with a chair placed at its center, and you can glimpse certain things. A warm light falls from above, silence fills the room, and the atmosphere feels suspended—almost ritual. Books silently surround that single chair, as if someone is meant to sit down and listen. One light overhead. Wooden walls. Strange objects. Subtle symbols. It’s a place you don’t just photograph—you feel it.
Anne Rice, Lovecraft, vampires, dark worlds; portraits staring back at you from framed walls.
There is a worn leather couch sitting in the middle of an endless sea of shelves, like an invitation to stop, to stay. Around it: industrial structures, gears, pipes, aged wood. Everything is intentionally imperfect, and precisely for that reason, deeply authentic.
Almost secret rooms. Together with art, life and writers. What makes life wonderful.
The curved book tunnel is perhaps the most iconic moment. A passage that feels alive, breathing, guiding your steps through soft light. You walk, and you forget where you are. You walk, and you become part of the place.
From above, the bookstore reveals itself fully: a secular cathedral of books. Monumental columns, endless shelves, people reading, searching, getting lost. A city within the city. A heart beating slowly, but relentlessly.
Today, The Last Bookstore is one of the largest independent bookstores in California. But more than that, it is a symbol of cultural resistance, a fixed point in a downtown that continues to change, transform, and rise again. It is part of that pulse that, in 2025, can finally be felt once more—among streets coming back to life and places that still believe in beauty.
https://www.lastbookstorela.com/
To see more articles visit our section Art.
