Greenlight Bookstore’s customers green light second location with six-figures in loans. Elsewhere in Brooklyn, a feminist collective combines bookselling with washing clothes. And a Pittsburgh group which provides sanctuary for writers is about to add a community bookstore, cafe, and event space.
Pittsburgh to Get Asylum This Fall: City of Asylum, which has been providing sanctuary for literary writers for the past decade, starting with Chinese poet Huang Xiang, is planning a $12.2 million renovation for its new headquarters. That figure includes construction of a bookstore, City of Asylum Books @ Alphabet City, a wine-and-cheese cafe, and an event space that can seat 225 people. Lesley Rains, who’s just completing the sale of her East End Book Exchange, will manage the bookstore.
Mini Feminist Bookstore + Sex Shop Opens in Brooklyn: The 100 sq. ft. Troll Hole opened inside a laundromat in the Bushwick section. The bookstore is collectively-owned and operated on a volunteer basis.
Greenlight’s Community Lending Program a Success: Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn, N.Y. has already received over $150,000 and anticipates getting an additional $50,00 in loans by its June 1 deadline. The money will support the opening of a second location in the Prospect Lefferts Gardens neighborhood.
Philly AIDS Thrift Wins Award for Giovanni’s Room: The Independence Business Alliance’s sixth annual IBA Business Leaders Conference gave the organization, which took over Giovanni’s Room, the country’s oldest LGBT bookstore, in August 2014, $10,000 to invest in the bookstore. The group plans to use the award to upgrade the bookstore’s website, QueerBooks.com.
Cofounder of The Raven Bookstore to Retire: The Lawrence, Kans., bookstore is planning an open house with cake on Saturday to celebrate Kehde’s final three-hour shift at the store. After selling the bookstore to Heidi Raak in 2008, Kehde has continued to work part-time in the store, which she began 28 years ago.
