Leonard Riggio, who forged a bookselling empire at Barnes & Noble, dead at 83 Boston 25 News [Video]

NEW YORK — (AP) — Leonard Riggio, a brash, self-styled underdog who transformed the publishing industry by building Barnes & Noble into the country’s most powerful bookseller before his company was overtaken by the rise of Amazon.com, has died at age 83.

Riggio died Tuesday a “following a valiant battle with Alzheimer’s disease,” according to a statement issued by his family. He had stepped down as chairman in 2019 after Barnes & Noble was sold to the hedge fund Elliott Advisors.

Riggio’s near-half century reign at Barnes & Noble began in 1971 when he used a $1.2 million loan to purchase the company’s name and its flagship store on lower Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. He acquired hundreds of new stores over the next 20 years and, in the 1990s, launched what became a nationwide empire of “superstores” that combined a chain’s discount prices and massive capacity with the cozy appeal of couches, …