Community Story
Robyn Schwartz
When my husband and I moved to Genova, Italy in 2008 (you can read all about our adventures here), there were a lot of things I had to give up—my fulfilling nonprofit job, my lovely Park Slope neighborhood, proximity to family and friends, bagels (although I eventually learned how to make them myself)—the list goes on. And high on that litany of New York-centric things I dearly missed was my weekly shift at the Housing Works Bookstore Cafe.
For nearly every Wednesday night since mid-2004, I had trekked down either Broadway or Houston to one of my New York favorite spots. When I started, I worked in book publishing, and by the time I left, nonprofit administration, so volunteering at the bookstore was a perfect way to combine my varied interests (and I actually credit my experience at the store with inspiring that professional transition). From shelving to pricing to working events to ringing up purchases and attempting to help customers find obscure titles (long before we had any sort of web database!), those four hours a week were a reassuring constant during a tumultuous four years of switching industries and apartments while juggling grad school and a long-distance relationship. Even if I could only show up for a half an hour after class to help carry out trash bags and sweep our famous bathrooms, it just always felt like I was coming home—especially in the last couple of years when we had a tight and steady crew. My already overflowing bookshelves became structurally unsound due to all the amazing texts I’d find while browsing in between tasks, their purchases abetted by our generous volunteer discount. Plus, my connection to the store helped me convince family, friends, and colleagues that the books they were ready to part with could find wonderful new homes if they landed on Housing Works’s shelves.
Since I couldn’t have a virtual marriage, I had to convince a lot of people to let me do other things virtually, like working and chatting and volunteering. Happily, the Bookstore Cafe and Housing Works, Inc. staff has put up with my persistent e-mails requesting projects—as lovely as it may sound, a New Yorker cannot spend a year and a half just sitting on the Italian Riviera eating gelato and focaccia! And while conducting internet research and creating spreadsheets doesn’t offer the same thrill as explaining the store’s mission to someone who just wandered in off Crosby, it keeps me connected and grateful that I can still make a tiny contribution to Housing Works’s amazing efforts to passionately advocate for and provide a rich continuum of services to homeless New Yorkers living with AIDS and HIV.
I’m not quite sure when we’ll be moving back to the States and if we’ll even be landing in New York when we do, but I do know that wherever I end up, Housing Works Bookstore Cafe will always be just a few mouse clicks away
