Yes, there are wall-to-wall books on sleek black shelves. Yes, there is hidden but available seating. Yes, hip, colored lamps and Christmas tree lights illuminate the rooms. But the most telling feature of Park Slope’s Community Bookstore & Café is this: It is decorated with peacock feathers.
How else can one describe the hip but accessible gem of a store located at 143 Seventh Ave.? Community Bookstore is at once whimsical, colorful, striking, cool, and fiercely independent.
In the back, behind the children’s area, sits a courtyard, from which a cat enters. Customers—clearly regulars—delightedly call it over. The air is filled with the sounds of cool jazz and customers laughing and consulting the surprisingly knowledgeable and youthful staff.
While there are offbeat books sections—dedicated to, for example, religion, psychology, and scientific fiction—there are also stacks upon stacks housing what is simply categorized as “literature.”
Though the store cannot exactly be described as cheap (one customer was overheard requesting a $90 book), there was a remarkable 50-percent-off sale section. Besides, as with many independent bookstores, customers don’t necessarily come for the prices.
“It’s the same thing that sets little restaurants apart from chain restaurants,” said employee John Tuzcu. He explained that the story is the same in the books industry as it is elsewhere: homogenization. However, as Tuzcu noted, “the people working here care about what they’re selling.”
Tuzcu also proudly indicated a wall that featured titles from “all small presses.” Community Bookstore, taking seriously its independent status, makes a point of trying to introduce smaller publishing companies and little-known books whose companies don’t have great advertising power.
“The cool thing about independent bookstores,” Tuzcu said, “is that each has its own niche.” He used, as an example, Idlewild at East 19th Street, which has an international focus and “attracts a certain kind of person.” What niche does Community fill? In Tuzcu’s words, it “feels like kind of a home. There’s not too much pretension.”
Beyond independence, the allure of this store is a matter of what’s in a name. As Tuzcu pointed out, “The place is called Community. Most people in the community know the owner.” There are family and reading group events, but there are also events that aren’t dedicated to books at all—after Sept. 11, for example, the store became a public meeting space.
Even today, the witty and jocular staff (reason enough to make the trip) has seen people come in with their own books “to kind of hang out,” as Tuzcu observed. “It’s not only about the business transaction.”
Maybe they just wanted to see the peacock feathers.
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