Hoepli: hundreds attend flash mob, messages in the shop window and staff staging a sit-in

Milan, 14 March (LaPresse) – Several hundred people gathered this morning outside the Hoepli bookshop on Via Hoepli in Milan for a flash mob protesting the closure of the historic bookshop following the liquidation approved by the shareholders’ meeting. Many Milanese left written messages on the white sheet of paper displayed in the shop window. “Don’t kill the cultural heart of Milan piece by piece; they’ve already killed enough of it. Let’s save it, at least Hoepli, please,” wrote Federico, one of the participants. Among those present was also Aurelia, a long-standing customer: “I’ve always come here since I was a child to buy books, and I still do. This closure is absurd; people from Milan come here often and it represents a cultural moment.” The staff also expressed their dismay. Eugenio Bellotti, who has been at the bookshop for twenty-eight years, described the handling of the announcement as “dramatic”: “They’re telling us it’s closing within a month. If someone wants to sell it—or at least not let it go bust—they don’t close it in a month: you announce it six months in advance, or a year in advance.”