For 15 years, employees of Posman Books in Grand Central Terminal have perfected their response to six magic words: “I have a train to catch.”
15年来，对于“我要赶火车”这个带魔力的句子，纽约中央车站(Grand Central Terminal)波兹曼书店(Posman Books)的员工们已将自己的反馈做得日臻完美了。
“I think that we have always tried very hard to make it easy for our customers to come in in a hurry and grab something,” said Robert Fader, Posman’s vice president. “Of course, we encourage anyone to linger who has the time, and if the trains are delayed, so much the better.”
“我觉得我们一直在尽最大努力，以方便匆匆赶来的顾客尽快买好东西，”波兹曼的副总裁罗伯特·菲德尔(Robert Fader)说，“当然了，我们鼓励有时间的人在书店里逗留，如果火车晚点的话，就更好了。”

As the evening rush began on a recent Wednesday, several customers did linger, but not for the reasons Mr. Fader once relied on. The store will close its doors on Dec. 31, and some commuters wanted to buy a book, a card, a calendar, in a show of respect.
最近的一个星期三，随着晚高峰的开始，有好几名顾客确实在书店里逗留了一阵，但原因跟菲德尔所说的不一样。因为这家书店在12月31日就要关门了，有些通勤者想要过来买上一本书、一张卡片或一副挂历，以表敬意。
“I wanted to get some books to help them,” said Cynthia Cruz, who teaches poetry at Sarah Lawrence College and comes into the store several times a week. “I just figured it was another bookstore that was going away.”
“我想买些书来帮助他们，”辛西娅·克鲁兹(Cynthia Cruz)说。克鲁兹在莎拉劳伦斯学院(Sarah Lawrence College)教授诗歌，每周都会到店里来几次，“我才发现，这是又一家要消失的书店。”
Bookstores around New York City have been disappearing for years, driven out by soaring rents and the overall gloomy economics of the publishing industry.
许多年来，纽约各处的书店都在相继消失。它们因持续上涨的租金和出版业的整体萧条而遭淘汰。
But Posman’s location in one of North America’s biggest transit hubs had always been among its biggest blessings, keeping it profitable, according to Mr. Fader. That fortunate locale, however, has now contributed to the store’s misfortune, because the shop is in the middle of two separate multibillion-dollar construction projects that are pushing it out.
但据菲德尔说，波兹曼书店的所在地是北美最大的交通枢纽之一，这一直是书店盈利的一大优势。然而，这个得天独厚的位置如今也成了书店的不幸，因为在书店的两侧，分别出现了一个耗资数十亿美元的施工项目，正在将书店挤走。
SL Green Realty, one of the largest commercial landlords in New York, plans to build a 1,400-foot tower next to Grand Central at 1 Vanderbilt Avenue. Under an agreement that predates the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s oversight of Grand Central, SL Green has a right to take back the rear half of Posman’s space to support construction projects above ground, according to Aaron Donovan, a spokesman for the M.T.A.
SL Green Realty房产投资信托公司是纽约最大的商业地产公司之一。该公司计划在中央车站旁边的范德比尔特大道(Vanderbilt Avenue)1号，建造一座1400英尺（约合427米）高的大楼。大都会运输署（Metropolitan Transportation Authority，以下简称MTA）的发言人亚伦·多诺万(Aaron Donovan)表示，根据MTA监管中央车站之前的一份协议，SL Green Realty有权收回波兹曼书店后半部分的空间，来支持地面上的施工项目。
And the M.T.A. is busy with its own $10 billion project to connect Grand Central with the Long Island Rail Road. Bracing for the surge of new passengers both projects will bring, the agency saw 1 Vanderbilt as an opportunity to increase space for pedestrian foot traffic.
而MTA正忙着铺开其耗资100亿美元（约合人民币613亿元）的项目，将中央车站和长岛铁路连接起来。两个项目都将带来大量客流。由于抱有这样的预期，MTA将范德比尔特大道1号视为一个契机，来为行人交通争取更多的空间。
So SL Green and the M.T.A. reached an agreement: SL Green will use its space to build pillars, columns or whatever it may need for 1 Vanderbilt, but it will turn most of the area into a pedestrian thoroughfare, according to Mr. Donovan. When it finishes, the M.T.A. can turn the other half of the space back into a retail area, he said.
多诺万说，由此一来，SL Green和MTA达成了一个协议：SL Green将在波兹曼书店后半部分的空间里，修建支柱、圆柱等范德比尔特1号可能需要的一切构件；但作为交换，这里绝大多数地方都将被修成行人通道。等到完工后，MTA就可以把书店的前半部分变回零售区了。
In the meantime, Posman’s floor space will be used for storage for other retailers that have lost space to the Long Island Rail Road project.
与此同时，波兹曼书店的底层将作为其它零售商的储物空间，用于补偿其在长岛铁路项目中损失的经营场所。
SL Green will pick up most of the bill. It has committed to spend $210 million on the walkway and other improvements to Grand Central, Mr. Donovan said.
多诺万表示，SL Green将支付大部分费用。该公司已承诺斥资2.1亿美元（约合人民币13亿元），改善中央车站的人行道等设施。
The Rite Aid drugstore next door to Posman will remain open (its lease extends through 2019), although it will lose about 3,000 square feet of space, Mr. Donovan said. PIQ, a nearby gift store, will lose about 200 square feet.
多诺万还说，波兹曼书店隔壁的RiteAid药店将继续营业（其租约有效期到2019年），只不过它将损失3000平方英尺（约合279平方米）的场地。而附近的PIQ礼品店将损失200平方英尺（约合19平方米）的场地。
Only Posman will close. The M.T.A. opted not to renew its lease when it expired in August, and the store has operated on a month-to-month basis since then.
只有波兹曼书店会关张。该书店的租约在8月到期时，MTA没有与之续约；自此以后，书店一直是按月缴费，维持经营的。
Mr. Fader estimated that roughly 1,500 people stream through the door each day, nearly double Posman’s second-busiest location in Chelsea (Posman operates a third store in Rockefeller Center).
菲德尔估计，书店每天上门的顾客约有1500人，比波兹曼旗下生意第二红火的切尔西(Chelsea)门店多出将近一倍（波兹曼书店还在洛克菲勒中心[Rockefeller Center]经营着第三家门店）。
Many of those customers are tourists, others are commuters. Many are in a rush, and the store is designed to get them in and out quickly.
顾客当中许多是旅客，其他人则是通勤者。很多人都需要赶时间，而这家店的设计宗旨就是让顾客能够快速进出店面。
Some books are displayed on tables instead of shelves, to make it easier for customers to get a quick sense of the selection. Kent Peterson, 61, a merchandiser who has been with the store since it opened, even helped design the shelves underneath the tables so that more books could be displayed this way.
有些书陈列在桌子上，而非书架上，就是为了让顾客能够更快地挑选到心仪的图书。采购员肯特·彼得森(Kent Peterson)现年61岁，从书店开张伊始就一直在店里工作。他甚至还协助设计了桌子底下的书架，这样就能陈列更多的书。
“This isn’t one of those stores where you’re going into some sort of labyrinth of confusion,” Mr. Fader said. “We can then take care of what it is they need and get them out of the door, and I think that there’s a sort of nice simplicity to that.”
“有些店面，进去之后感觉就像进了迷宫一样迷茫。这家书店则不一样，”菲德尔说，“我们可以帮助他们寻找自己需要的东西，让他们带出店门。我觉得这是一种美好的简单理念。”
The store also caters to popular tastes, unlike what Mr. Fader, 57, said were the snobbier independent booksellers of his native London and his earlier days in New York. (One store would not sell Stephen King novels, he recalled, although he declined to say which one.)
这家店还会迎合大众的胃口。现年57岁的菲德尔表示，他老家伦敦的那些清高的独立书商则不一样，他自己在纽约早年间也是如此（他记得有一家书店不愿意卖斯蒂芬·金[Stephen King]的小说，只不过他不肯说出是哪一家）。
He carefully monitors the news to make sure that Posman has plenty of a potentially hot-selling book. The Harlequin romance section is always well stocked.
他会仔细了解时事资讯，以确保波兹曼书店的潜在畅销书库存充足。禾林出版社(Harlequin)的爱情小说专区总是库存充足的。
“We treat that area with the seriousness that we treat literature, if you like,” he said.
“我们对那个专区的态度很认真，就像我们对待文学一样，如果你要这么说的话。”他说。
Posman is one of about 100 retailers and restaurants in Grand Central, roughly double the number when the M.T.A. undertook a major overhaul of the station in the 1990s to try to make better use of the space.
包括波兹曼书店在内，中央车站大概有100家零售店和餐馆，比MTA当初接管车站时多出了将近一倍。20世纪90年代，MTA对车站进行了大规模整修，以便更好地利用它的空间。
“There was a store selling baked potatoes and cooking with no kitchen exhaust,” said Nancy Marshall, the M.T.A.’s director of retail leasing and management for the terminal. “There was just a very unplanned method of retail within the building and the lack of any sort of cohesive mix.”
南希·马歇尔(Nancy Marshall)在MTA负责中央车站的零售场所租赁和管理，她说：“当时这里有一家店是卖烤土豆的，没有厨房换气设施。这个建筑里面的零售店根本就没有经过很好的规划，缺少整体性。”
Now, the station tries to include a group of national retailers like Banana Republic and M.A.C. Cosmetics, although it prefers to keep restaurants more New York-centric, like Shake Shack, Junior’s and Two Boots pizza.
如今，中央车站正试图引进一批全国规模的零售商，比如服饰品牌香蕉共和国(Banana Republic)和化妆品牌魅可(M.A.C. Cosmetics)，只不过在对餐厅的选择上，它更倾向于纽约特色的商家，比如Shake Shack、Junior's和Two Boots披萨。
The M.T.A. also made cosmetic changes during the renovation. It removed a fake ceiling near the Oyster Bar, which has called the station home since 1913, making it Grand Central’s oldest business. Now, passengers walking in front can see the famous sky ceiling of the main concourse, with its depictions of stars and constellations.
在装修期间，MTA还对中央车站进行了“整容”，拆掉了生蚝吧(Oyster Bar)附近的一个假天花板。生蚝吧早在1913年就入驻了大中央车站，是这里历史最悠久的店面。如今，旅客走在前面，可以看到主站厅那著名的天顶壁画，上面画着星星和星座。
Mr. Fader keeps reminders of a different Grand Central Terminal in his office. An old photograph of the main concourse, before another major construction project sprang up next door, hangs on his wall.
菲德尔在办公室里存放了一些物品，来纪念中央车站的往日面貌。有一张老照片挂在墙上，展示的是主站厅，当时隔壁还有一个大型建筑项目即将动工。
“The light can’t come in like that anymore,” he said. “It’s nice to think about it from a different time.”
“光线已经不可能像那样照射进来了，”他说，“能从一个不同的时代回顾它的面貌，也别有一番意境。”