Washington Heights Comes Together to Create Community-Based Bookstore
4When Veronica Santiago Liu and a group of neighbors came up with the idea for a pop-up bookshop in Washington Heights, none of them expected it to last longer than a month - much less ten years later.
"When we first opened and were a pop-up, people kept on asking us 'what do you want for your future…how long do you want to me around’, and we had a meeting to discuss that and said 'we want to be here for twenty years," said Liu, the Founder of Word Up Community Bookshop/Librería Comunitaria. "We want to be here for as long as possible, but twenty years felt like a generation."
Word Up Community Bookshop, located at 2113 Amsterdam Ave in New York, NY, has not only become the place to find the perfect book to read but the heart of the community since opening in June 2011.
The nonprofit community-based bookshop is run by a group of neighbors and volunteers who created the space to embrace the different cultures and languages in their neighborhood.
"It’s hard to compare this bookstore with other bookstores because we don’t have a specific mission to make money or pay the rent…" said Founding Collective Member Emmanuel Abreu. "Our primary goal is to do what we as a community want to do."
As the community hub, Word Up Community Bookshop hosts concerts, book signings, movie screenings, art exhibitions, workshops, after-school events, and even a gathering place for community members to talk to local politicians.
"If members want to hear about political leaders in the neighborhood…we can host these meetings, where they can speak to their neighbors directly without us endorsing anyone specifically," said Abreu. "It’s just so we can know what’s going on in our community."
When people walk into the bookstore, Liu and Abreu hope that people take away with them more than just books.
"What I would love for people to walk away with when they experience Word Up is a feeling that they can do the same thing wherever they are," said Abreu. "So, if they want to create a community space, I want them to see that all it takes is doing it and collaborating with like-minded people. I want people to walk away inspired to do whatever it is they want to do."
To learn more about volunteering or donating to Word Up Community Bookshop, visit their site here.
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