Powell's City of Books

The warehouse-sized building on the corner of Burnside Street covers an entire city block, marked by the distinctive orange and white signage of Powell's City of Books. Michael Powell started the business in nineteen seventy-one after visiting his father’s bookstore in Chicago. He realized the store could survive by buying and selling used inventory alongside new titles. Thousands of people pass through these aisles every day, often getting lost among the color-coded rooms that house millions of individual books.