Greenlight Bookstore
Mon Nov 21 2011
-
Empire State Building
-
Brooklyn Bridge
-
New York Public Library
-
Central Park
-
Grand Central Terminal
-
Radio City Music Hall
-
Macy's
-
Times Square
-
The Statue of Liberty
-
Lincoln Center
-
Greenlight Bookstore
-
The Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center
-
The High Line
-
The 9/11 Memorial
14 New York City secrets
As brick-and-mortar bookstores continue to face extinction, this two-year-old Fort Greene emporium has thrived (and even expanded—sort of—with two satellite kiosks at the Brooklyn Academy of Music). Owners Rebecca Fitting and Jessica Stockton-Bagnulo opened the shop in response to a community survey, which found that neighborhood residents really wanted a bookstore in the area. Now it's a local gathering spot and even counts literary luminaries such as Jennifer Egan and Jhumpa Lahiri among its regular customers. It's housed in a building that's more than a century old; at different times, the structure served as an insurance agency and the headquarters of a chapter of Black Veterans for Social Justice. Fitting and Stockton-Bagnulo also found an homage to one of the neighborhood's historic residents. "There's a very old painting of Robert Fulton's invention, the steamboat, above one of the doors," explains Stockton-Bagnulo. "[It's] where our monthly comedy series, Steamboat, gets its name." 686 Fulton St at South Portland Ave, Fort Greene, Brooklyn (718-246-0200, greenlightbookstore.com)
