3c hapter - Index of

Community Capital 109
So it is especially rankling when another indie favorite is
teetering on the brink. In the literary equivalent of cops saving
a doughnut shop, a group of professors from the local university
stepped up to invest in Tsunami Books in Eugene, Oregon, when
they heard of its impending demise in 2005. 3
In Brooklyn, we’ve had our share of bookworms in shining
armor. In 2007, Catherine Bohne was distraught over the thought that
The Community Bookstore, a neighborhood institution she bought
from its founder in 2001, might go under. When a regular customer
got wind of the situation, she alerted other loyal customers and they
rallied to Bohne’s defense. One helped Bohne work up a business
plan and renegotiate a bank loan, while 12 other locals, including
actor John Turturro, kicked in $10,000 apiece for a stake in the store. 4
One investor of modest means even took out a loan to invest. A year
later, with shelves again fully stocked, sales were up 40 percent. 5
The Community Bookstore continues to provide the kinds of
services that have made it indispensable to the neighborhood. It
sponsors book clubs and a mystery- book swap, and it offers free
delivery. Its resident felines, Tiny and Marjorie, roam the aisles.
Once a month, the bookstore hosts a Community Forum night to
explore an issue or topic of interest to the neighborhood, whether
green energy for the home, composting, or bat houses (before
you snicker, consider that a single brown bat can eat up to 1,000
mosquitoes per hour!). Bohne also helped organize a “buy local”
campaign, hosting a party for merchants to kick it off.
Last year, when Bohne decided to move to a remote valley
in Albania to run a guest house (bookstore owners tend to be
quirky that way), another longtime customer, a writer named Ezra
Goldstein, stepped up with his wife to buy the shop. “The investors
have been really wonderful,” he says. “Their main concern is
that the bookstore stay open.” For now, the store is barely breaking
even, says Goldstein. But investors will see the value of their
stakes rise modestly with the transaction. He is also cooking up
new amenities to attract customers, including adding new book
clubs and a fi lm series, offering free tea and coffee, and sprucing
up the bookstore’s garden (thanks to a neighborhood landscaper
who refused payment aside from two books).