Barnes & Noble and GameStop founder Leonard Riggio passed away on Tuesday after a battle with Alzheimer’s disease, the family announced.  The retail pioneer was 83.

Riggio built Barnes & Noble up over half a century, opening his first college bookstore in Greenwich Village in 1965 and acquiring rival Manhattan store Barnes & Noble in 1971.  B&N bought B. Dalton Bookseller, a mall chain, in 1987, and began a strategy of opening superstores, which included cafes and large newsstand offerings.  The growth of the chain was accompanied by a decline in the number of independent bookstores, who found it difficult to compete with B&N’s size and selection.

B&N continued to expand until the store count peaked at 726 for the fiscal year ended January 2009.  But Amazon’s emergence on the retail scene in 1995 and the growth of digital content took their toll, leading to a challenging sales environment through the teens.  But it was during that period that Barnes & Noble expanded its selection of manga, graphic novels, and hobby games, dramatically impacting sales in those categories.

Riggio was a pioneer of retailing beyond Barnes & Noble.  He also founded Barnes & Noble College Bookstores, a contract operator of college stores across the U.S., Software, Etc., and in 1999, GameStop, which grew to over 7000 stores worldwide.

Through the teens, Riggio was in and out as Barnes & Noble CEO multiple times in a period when the company had at least five CEOs.  He came back one last time to oversee the sale of the chain to Waterstones parent Elliott Management Corporation in 2019 (see "B&N Sold to Elliott"), ensuring that the company would be run by a bookseller.