Leonard Riggio, the businessman who founded the Barnes & Noble empire and changed the way Americans buy books, has died at 83, NPR reports. Riggio had been battling Alzheimer’s disease before his death.

Riggio was born and raised in New York City. He worked at the New York University campus bookstore before leaving the school to start his own retailer, SBX. He bought Barnes & Noble in 1971; at the time, the store had only one location.

Riggio expanded the business, advertising on television, adding hundreds of new locations, and buying B. Dalton, the chain of bookstores that were shopping mall mainstays. He reimagined bookstores, adding coffee shops and comfortable seating, inviting customers to linger as they browsed the stores’ merchandise.

Barnes & Noble stores were hit hard by the rise of online bookselling and closed hundreds of its locations. In 2019, the chain was acquired by Elliott Investment Management.

Riggio’s admirers paid tribute to him on social media. On the platform X, author Melissa DeRosa wrote, “Len Riggio was a visionary, an entrepreneur, a great success.…but more than that he was incredibly kind and a New Yorker to his core. He will be missed.”

And Dana Mattioli, author of The Everything War: Amazon’s Ruthless Quest To Own the World and Remake Corporate Power, posted, “So sad to hear of the passing of Len Riggio. Had a wonderful time speaking to him when researching my book and hearing his accounts of going head to head with a young Jeff Bezos. What a career and life.”

Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.