Well, that was exciting.

We went from this—

to this—

Yana Paskova for The New York Times

. . . in under four days.

But we’re open now, so please stop in!

Word Up visitors so far have been fantastically supportive, without even complaining (too loudly) as we’ve put them to work right away. As an all-volunteer community space, we spare no one the drudgery—and we hope that you don’t even want to be spared! Our ideas and hands coming together have made Word Up intensely rejuvenating during these first days.

And amid the gathering of neighbours, there have even been book sales(!) and giveaways, as well as a couple of great events for youth: during a story reading with Sam Guncler—a.k.a. Mr. Sam—on Monday, the kids spontaneously broke out into song; and during the People’s Theatre Project/Seven Stories Institute performance of Dig It! on Tuesday, the audience was treated to a special Q&A with our local teen writers/performers Sofia Arnold, Ben Edelman, Romy Garcia, Jelissa Hernandez, Angel Martinez, and Angel Suazo.

Next up is a reading on Thursday, June 23, 7pm, with acclaimed poet and Heights resident Meena Alexander and NoMAA’s own Rebeca C. Rivera. Check back for more events soon. (We’ll figure out this embed-a-calendar thing any minute now.)

You have just under a month to experience Word Up, so don’t dawdle. We’re open weekdays from 4 to 9pm, and weekends from 12 to 4pm, at 4157 Broadway at 176 Street. You can find out about our events via Twitter (@WordUpBooks) or Facebook (http://on.fb.me/mbA05p), and you can read more about the shop in the New York Times, in the Manhattan Times, and on the Uptown Collective site.

There’s one heckuva long list of people and organizations to thank for making this happen—and we shall hear from them one by one soon!