Save Bluestockings: Support Radical Spaces

Comrades, book lovers, queer fam, we have some rough news.

Due to aggression from NIMBY residents, lack of staffing capacity, financial difficulties, among other issues, Bluestockings Cooperative needs your help. We know this is a long shot, but we have to try. We can’t survive to see another day of radical literature and community space unless we get the support we need. We’re $150k in the hole, and scared.

We put blood, sweat, tears, and love into this space and we are not making this decision to call for funds lightly.

Over the course of the last several years, we’ve seen a lot of changes in health, disability, work capacity, and also have struggled to balance the needs of our direct community and the needs of a radical bookstore that has to sell books to stay afloat. We made judgement calls that felt right and urgent in the moment, and there were consequences. The free store, and our direct service work in the neighborhood highlighted extreme need and the organized abandonment the City of New York is comfortable with toward its housing insecure, drug-using, immigrant people. We struggled to prioritize our rest and body/mind needs, resulting in burnout and health crises. We dealt with constant antagonization from “neighbors” and landlords who have no idea what it’s like to go without. The harassment and violence felt endless at times.

We’re now calling on former worker-owners, and our extended community for support to set us up for the best shot at reorganizing and reopening within the next year. Here’s what this means:

-We’ll need to zero out our debt with publishers so that we can order books in the future

-We want to take cooperative classes as a collective to bridge knowledge gaps

-We’ll need to safely store remaining inventory, so we’re not rebuilding from scratch

-We need to settle credit card debt that was accrued to stock the free store and PPE supplies

-We need to pay our legal team and accountants to help us close efficiently and legally

All of the above protects us, and increases our odds of reopening a new iteration of Bluestockings.

We are a young, ragtag crew. None of us had experience owning a business, or running a bookstore prior to taking on those roles here. We made a lot of mistakes, and we made them with love and hope. We did, and do, have a love of queer and trans people, a belief that we all should have spaces of respite, and in the absolute necessity of radical independent bookstores. We are Black and brown children of immigrants, queer and trans, sex working/trading, and drug-using people ourselves. We deserve spaces of political education, comfort, pleasure, and joy. This is a vision for everyone. We need your help in being able to try again.