It’s a bookstore

The week leading up to the opening of Word Up last year was a week that a lot of people thought we were crazy. As we posted a long time ago, this is what the space looked like when we first moved in:

Beginning of June 2011

Curewell just moved a few doors south.

We moved in the night of June 13. Then we came back at 4pm on June 14, in case anyone showed up, because that was the day we were originally going to open. Someone came by all right, 4pm on the dot: Marilyn from the New York Times. Then came Mike on behalf of the Manhattan Times, with Carla of DNAinfo. Everyone had camera in hand, but all we had at the time was a big empty space and piles of boxes and bags.

Photo credit: Mike Fitelson

It wasn’t till the next day when there was more interesting stuff to look at. . . .

Photo credit: Art by Dj Boy

The afternoon of June 15, Dister looked for inspiration in the books that had arrived from consignees. That evening, he and Feegz staked a claim, on the bookshop’s behalf, to the front wall.

As they painted the wall, people came in and asked us questions.
—A bookstore? A bookstore? Here? A bookstore?
—Don’t open a bookstore. You gotta open something HOT.
—A wha?
—Yeah, good luck with that.

These unsolicited comments led Dister to make the sign that many have since snapped photos of:

In the meantime, Abby Walthausen, whose poetry book The Internet is available at the shop, created the Word Up foil painting.

Foil on the left (where did my photos of foil-painting-in-progress go?)

Will, Robin, and others cleaned, and Vern processed consignment books. Alison made sure people were eating. Dj Boy ran around and took pictures, left the shop to take pictures of some other event, then returned to take more pictures. Neighbors—strangers—walked by, sat in our few chairs, and watched, and talked. Slowly it dawned on us that we should get their emails and phone numbers . . . to ask them to come back the next day to help. Some of them did, and have been helping out as Word Up collective members ever since.

On June 16, it was time to get serious about furniture. After all, the grand opening was to be June 17! With the help of Bob and Mino from People’s Theatre Project, we had selected some furniture from Materials for the Arts the previous week, but finding help for the pickup was proving difficult. In the end, Inju from Kaboom Press helped with some heavy lifting in Long Island City, and with guiding the goods into the Craigslisted truck.

One of the rolly cases didn’t quite fit inside the truck. If you think this looks precarious, imagine the feeling (and that nerve-racking bouncing) while sitting in shotgun riding on the bridges between boroughs.

Back at the shop, Sandy kept watch, then helped unload once we arrived. A whole load of neighbors showed up to move the furniture into place. People who came to put their books or art on consignment were set to work immediately! At the end of the night, though, there were still massive piles of boxes all over the place. But we did need to sleep . . .

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To celebrate our anniversary, we have commemorated some of these early icons. If you donate at various levels, you can get a T-shirt or button, showing the rolly cases that we have pulled and pushed out with much effort day after day over the past year, signaling to all who walk past our storefront that there are books within.

Adult tees are available in XXS to XXL, in heather red, heather gray, and heather dark gray.

Kids’ sizes available in blue/red.

Buttons are good for all ages!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And we made magnets so that you can stick a bit of proof of our beginnings onto your fridge:

With Dister’s original lettering

Now that we’ve been here for almost a year, we’ve built up a whole new set of iconic images based on the people, books, and experiences that have comprised Word Up over the past year. We hope we’ll be able to unveil new things at next year’s anniversary, and all the ones beyond—because we plan to be around for those, unlike what we thought at this time last year, when we thought this was a 1-month project, a transitory activity, rather than a real, live manifestation of all our neighborhood has wanted for so long, and has worked toward building for a year, with real sweat and spirit.

This time last year, we almost had the key to the store . . .

The morning of June 12 last year, a few of us got up way too early on a Sunday morning then drove through the Harriman fog to Pine Bush, New York.

Some people think 20 feet is not that long, but some of us are just not that tall.

There we picked up a 20-foot U-Haul and emptied out a garage that had been doubling as a warehouse. After arranging hundreds of boxes at the back of the truck, we brushed the dust off our bruised arms and began the trek back to NYC at dusk.

View from the garage emptied out in Pine Bush NY

The return trip was fraught with minor complications: we entered the GWB on the wrong level . . . we had to remember the details from our crash course on truck routes now that we were back in the city and needed to park in Lower Manhattan . . . we were forced to get a better handle on the width of our vehicle once those yellow taxis started swarming around Madison Square Garden . . . we had to find a lot that would take a 20-foot truck after hours . . . without going too much into detail on the numerous ways we almost ended up with various tickets and violations throughout the evening, we report that every single altercation ended in the most charmed way possible—as if the city wanted us to make sure we got this truck of books to the new, then-temporary home of Word Up the next day.

We were so hungry, Gabe ran out to get a hot dog, and I got behind some horses so that I’d have to drive slowly till he returned with two cooked dogs.

Then, the next morning on June 13, after unloading some of the boxes at one location in Lower Manhattan, we began the slow trip back uptown to stock Word Up. Of course it was right around rush hour.

We sat in a lot of traffic on the drive back uptown.

Because we wouldn’t be arriving uptown in the truck till well after business hours were up, we had to figure out how to obtain the key—so that we’d have somewhere to unload this truck full of books. Thus the first of the kind of tag-teaming that goes on at Word Up: Harol had the key and gave it to Diana, who met up with Robin, who passed it onto Gabe and Jacob and Vern, after we did a quick detour picking up furniture from Alison. That truck traveled the city before it got to 176 St. and Broadway; that key traveled the Heights before it got to 4157. But there we all finally were, at the same time, now with Will rolling in to help unload. In the dark. Because we didn’t yet have electricity. That late, late hour of June 13, we finally had a place we could enter; we just couldn’t see it, really. Didn’t stop Dj Boy from showing up that night with a camera. But no matter what, a grand opening date change was in order: originally set to open Word Up on June 14, that evening we pushed the opening till 3 days later—to June 17. Plenty of time to obtain electricity, furniture, more books, and more volunteers, right??

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The events we have had so far during our Birthday Fund Drive have been a lot of fun, and full of a lot of love, so thank you for coming out. We had a great day of readings on Sunday and got a lot of folks outfitted in our new T-shirts. On Monday, The Cheese Guy and the Truck Farm gave us a lot to reflect on, and to be inspired by. Tuesday night, at No Name, the Eric Vetter-hosted comedic and storytelling series that has been running at Word Up since September 2011, the crowd got some respite from the rain and enjoyed stories from Tom Shillue, Leighann Lord, Marilyn Torres, Lee Alan Barrett, and Armando Batista, and more.

And: THERE ARE ANOTHER 4 DAYS OF BIRTHDAY EVENTS! We’ve almost been here for a full year, which was the last thing we thought would happen when we dragged ourselves out of bed the morning of that Pine Bush trip. So please come celebrate with us—and launch us all into Year 2 with the knowledge that you’ve made it real clear that you love books, that you want books, that you need books to spread through our community. Show up to our Birthday Fund Drive this week and help ensure that Word Up remains here, in our neighborhood, and built by you.

CSB Member Reception & Screening of Truck Farm

Tonight, the 5th night of our Birthday Fund Drive, we invite members of our Community Supported Bookshop program to attend a free wine and cheese reception, with cheese provided by The Cheese Guy. We’ll be screening Truck Farm, a documentary that shows that, with a bit of determination and resourcefulness, you can grow food in unlikely places—a little like this bookstore we know . . . Current CSB members can attend for free. If you have been meaning to join the CSB, tonight is a great excuse! Come tonight and join, and help us grow this place.

If you cannot attend but would like to donate, please do so here. Keep us growing!

ABOUT THE FILM
Truck Farm is a whimsical, musical documentary about the quirky world of urban agriculture. After filmmaker Ian Cheney (King Corn) plants a garden in the back of his pickup truck, he and the Truck Farm set out to explore the rooftops, barges and windows that represent New York City’s newest edible oases. Can these urban farmers feed a city? Can the old Dodge and its crops survive the winter? Blending serious exposition with serious silliness, Truck Farm entreats viewers to ponder the future of urban farming, and to consider whether sustainability needs a dose of fun and whimsy to be truly sustainable. Length: 48 minutes

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
Ian Cheney runs Wicked Delicate, a documentary film and advocacy project in Brooklyn. He co-created and starred in the Peabody-winning PBS documentary King Corn, directed the Sundance Channel documentary The Greening of Southie and co-produced the Planet Green documentary Big River. Ian earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Yale University, where he helped create the Yale Sustainable Food Project. With longtime collaborator Curt Ellis, Ian is a founder of FoodCorps, a new national school garden program launching in August, 2011. They deliver frequent talks on agriculture and the environment. Ian’s newest feature documentary, The City Dark, is premiering in competition at the 2011 South by Southwest Film Festival.

Simon Beins is a Brooklyn-based performer and composer who tours regularly throughout the US and Europe and has released records on both continents. With his band the Wowz, he composed the scores for the Peabody Award-winning King Corn (2007), Kansas vs. Darwin (2007), and Big River (2009). His music also appears in the Zach Galifianakis feature film It’s Kind of a Funny Story (2010). In addition to co-writing and scoring Truck Farm, Simon scored the forthcoming feature documentary The City Dark.

3 events down, 7 more to go!

The past few days at Word Up have buzzed almost as much as the days leading up to our grand opening. We have more light. Our toilet works. Our donation premiums—T-shirts, magnets, buttons—are displayed proudly around the shop. This afternoon, we felt the breeze of cool air . . . And we have seen lots of YOU, our neighbors, giving your support and expressing that this is a place we all want to keep around. Please continue to visit us this week, this one time of year we have asked for event entrance fees, so that we can continue to keep our books affordable, our event prices free/low, and our rent paid.

The children’s book authors who visited this Saturday morning during Kids Rule Word Up! included Elizabeth Balaguer, author of Mi Carnaval/My Carnival, one of our most popular kids’ books at the shop; Melanie Hope Greenberg, whose Mermaids on Parade has been a hit all over town and is now available at Word Up, to put us in the right mood for summer; Jen Leach, author of Not Now, Ollie!, which will launch at Word Up on June 23; and Robin Glasser, whose penchant for rhyming does well in the kids’ circuit too, and whose book Baboon Bob will be ready for readers soon enough. Musician GioSafari performed for all. And, what’s a Saturday morning event without a little bit of face paint?

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In case you missed the start of our birthday celebrations, you can see what passed at our Kickoff Party with special guest Junot Díaz on Uptown Collective, DNAinfo, and El Diario. More photos and audio from Thursday night are also available on our Flickr page and on Art by DjBoy’s website. And, this past Saturday night, Channel 35 was to air a recap of Friday’s Noche de Poetas y Trovadores, which featured “La Romantica” Bernarda Dávila, Mary Gratereaux, Diogenes Abreu, Claudia Prado, Rafael A. Reyes, Eleana Reynoso, Gladys María Montolío, and more, with music by Sabrina Lastman and Roberto Poveda. We haven’t seen it yet, but will post it soon if all aired as planned!

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And this Sunday, from 2pm till we’re done, for $10 we have another packed day of readings with local poets and fictioneers during 9Cubed and MayDayAtDingDong Present. (Archival info about May Day at Ding Dong, one of the events under many names that was a precursor to Word Up, can be found here.) Come early and stick around, or pop in while you’re waiting to transfer your soon-to-be-clean clothes to the dryer. That’s the beauty of a community bookshop in your very own neighborhood—you can do the things you do on Sundays yet still take a time-out with literature. . . . IF you keep that community bookshop in your neighborhood. Do it! Yeah! See you Sunday!

Approaching our 1-year anniversary, can you help us raise $10,000 in 10 days?

At this time last year, we had just barely secured our location at 4157 Broadway. Most of us who work together as the Word Up Collective did not know each other, or were just meeting for the first time. Books from small, independent presses all over the country were arriving daily, but we had no idea where we were going to get any furniture on which to place them. We thought we’d only be operating a literary neighborhood space for one month; after that, we’d go back to our regular lives.

Since then, we have

• distributed 25,000+ books to our neighbors, in English, Spanish, and Russian;
• hosted 1,000+ people on our stage during events showcasing literature, music, film, and theater;
• opened our doors to an after-school program, workshops, community meetings, a language salon, and activist gatherings;
• specially supported Washington Heights– and Inwood-based  authors, independent presses, and other artsmakers through book sales, event space, and exposure;
• operated 7 days a week as a completely volunteer-driven space; and, most importantly,
• committed to preserving and building a neighborhood in which all residents help each other to live better informed and more expressive lives, using books as an instrument of reciprocal education and exchange, empowering not only themselves, but their community.

Instead of going back to our regular lives, we accommodated Word Up as a part of them—whether as a daily, integral activity, or as the small comfort that you might take for granted were it not for your recognition that it’s not a usual kind of community space. And, it’s a space that we want to continue to experience.

Now we are coming upon our 1-year anniversary. No small potatoes for a project we thought would last a month. Word Up will continue as long as we can as a joint program of Northern Manhattan Arts Alliance and Seven Stories Institute. Please join us in celebrating this milestone in June 2012!

SEE ALL ANNIVERSARY EVENTS HERE.

Particularly check out all the events we’ve programmed from June 7 to 16—our Birthday Fund Drive—during which we hope to raise money to give us a running start going into Year 2. Celebrating along with us will be Junot Díaz , Ed Park, Leighann Lord, the World War 3 Illustrated collective, poets, filmmakers, clowns, cheesemongers . . . the list goes on! We hope to raise $10,000 in 10 days. Think of it as a Kickstarter—but LIVE! Every night, for an average of $10, there’ll be an event with food, drink, and entertainment included. You can get an anniversary passport for $100 (access to all events). For $125 you get access to all events plus a magnet, tote bag, and 10 raffle tickets. For $150 you get all of the above plus our rad new Word Up T-shirt, which arrived yesterday!!

Raising money now will help keep our book prices extremely low and our events cheap/free during the rest of the year; will go toward some much needed repairs; and will offset our rent that increased on June 1.

Thank you for having been with us for Year 1 of Word Up. Please visit and donate if you want to see this space exist into a Year 2!