The question was, what kind of business? Initially, I was approached by a store that was failing and wanted to be bought out, but they were a fish market, and I definitely was not going to smell like fish every day. Then I noticed that I was buying at least a hundred dollars worth of books a month, going down to Barnes & Noble all the time. And I said to myself, "Gee, there's no bookstore in the community." And there are tons of schools here. There's a school every other block. I kept asking: how are these students getting their material? And I thought I could tap into that market.

So I approached several people and told them my idea. Everyone said I should put it on paper, and then they said they'd back me. So I wrote a proposal, did the finances, and showed it to my partner. Her name is Jennifer Wilson. She's a physician's assistant at Bronx Lebanon Hospital. Together, we then presented the finished proposal to the co-op board that owns the building. The board was very happy and accepted it right away.

At the time, MasterCard had just relocated to Westchester County and they were offering buy-out packages, so I took the buy-out, and I used the money to reinvest in the business.

It took nine months to design the space and get it ready for operation. We wanted to make it as comfortable as possible. We have a sitting room where you can relax, enjoy your reading, watch television. We usually have music. It's a comfort zone. Our main mission was to make it so that people wouldn't feel that they were in a store. I think it looks great.

We've been open since December 14, 1996. There are two employees: my partner and me. And then our children of course. Like I said, my partner is a physician's assistant--that's her main job. But she works in the store from 5 until 8 and then all day on Saturday. I am here full-time everyday. My work never ends [laughs].

We specialize in greeting cards, African statues, imports, and stationery supplies. And, of course, books. I got into this business because I was an avid reader, so I use my personal experience with book buying. And I myself have different modes of reading. Some days, I want just novels, a Terry McMillan piece, you know. I call that junk reading. It doesn't stimulate anything but gossip conversations, and I usually gravitate more towards higher knowledge, meaning reading about history as well as higher level consciousness. And the store reflects my tastes. We have a variety of sections. We have Christian books, which are Bibles and books on Christian education. And then we have the self-improvement books, affirmation books, and the holistic books on health and healing. Then we have our African American novels and autobiographies, and then we have our African American history. We also have paperbacks, general information, and children's books.

So far, we've had a good response, although it could be better. We have a taboo on the place, technically, because long before we got here--six years ago--this was a funeral home. So there are people within the community who had the last respects of their loved ones here and it is kind of hard to change their thought process. But I just tell them we're not burying the dead, we're raising consciousness. That's my slogan. (Laughs) I had to at least come up with a slogan to bring people in. I mean, it's sort of a strange problem, this taboo. It took one little old lady about two months just to step inside. And then when she did, we were having an event--I'm not sure if it was a Kwanzaa festival or a poetry reading--but we were having an event and someone had taken some books of the shelves and not put them back properly and one of these books fell off the shelf and this woman was ready to run out the door because she just knew a spirit had moved it. (Laughs) I mean, I knew that the book was shelved improperly, but she was ready to go. I had to work hard to convince her to stay. That's the power of a taboo, I guess. But most of the old-timers have slowly taken a turn and everyone who has come in has said that we have needed this for a long time.

My understanding of the demographics of this community is that it is predominantly Dominican, but you still have a large group of African Americans who are living here and we are really catering to them. We have Hispanic books, but they haven't moved as well and we're trying to figure out how to tap into that market. Their children support us, it's the adults who don't. And we're very concerned about that. I don't think it's a language barrier. Most Hispanics, if they do not speak English, they travel with someone who does. And besides, my Spanish is pretty good. So I really don't think language is the problem.

I'm still doing my research. I really want to tap into the Hispanic community, but the marketing statistics that I've read do not place them in a high category of readership. A majority of them are still watching mostly Hispanic television, reading mostly Hispanic magazines. Those native New Yorkers who are of Spanish descent, they're receptive. You can't offer them a Spanish book; they want to read English. But the immigrants are looking for predominantly Hispanic, Spanish literature. So it is hard to tap into them. But we are more than willingly to accommodate special orders. We welcome special orders. We will ship any book within a matter of two days, tops. So it's still kind of a mystery with the Hispanic community. I am very hopeful, though.

We have big plans for this space. This is a phase operation and we're only at phase one, which is getting the community used to the fact that there is now a place where they can come and get education. Whether it is material such as greeting cards, children's books, adult books, test preparation books or history or a poetry reading--they can get it here. Phase two goes into full on-line operations. We're looking to get computer workstations. We're going to offer computer training and bring the community up to speed with the rest of the world. This community is definitely not up to par. All of this will be funded by me and my partner's funds [laughs]. So as funds become available, we'll try to do it. These are big plans. I don't even really want to look at how much it might cost us right now. Today, we are getting by, covering our expenses. Ultimately, the growth depends on the community and their participation. We definitely need participation to survive.

Our marketing is pretty simple. We have an ad in the NYNEX business to business pages. And then we have our own mailing list. Anybody who comes into the shop, we ask them to be placed on our mailing list. Then we do direct mailing to our customers, hoping that they will be repeat customers. We also do flyers and post them around the neighborhood. I do all of the graphics. We've also extended our services to Boys and Girls High School, in Brooklyn, and we've had several orders placed from some of the teachers there. I've literally gotten up early in the morning and delivered books to them instead of them having to incur a shipping charge. We go out of our way to make people satisfied. That strategy is going to pay off in the end.

This is not a job; this is my life [laughs]. My mother always told me that if I went into any of my friends' houses and they did not have a bookshelf then I needed to leave because they were dumb. She was a teacher and she was pretty strict about this stuff. Even for Black Solidarity Day, if we wanted to stay home from school like the other children, my mother would say, "You need to write me a report on why you want to celebrate Black Solidarity Day." Of course, we all said, "We're going to school." But it worked. I mean, I'm definitely not a TV watcher; I'm a book reader. And like my mother said, "A person's house that has no books tells you that they are not reading and are not smart, well, not too smart, anyway." She also said that if they want to hide something from black people they have a tendency to put it in book knowing that we do not tend to read. I've heard that many times since then and I don't think it's really true, but I think that what is written in a book most people don't know about it. And I think we should all open up a book more often.

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