Manhattan's Only LGBTQ-Exclusive Bookstore Is Looking For a New Home
By Raillan Brooks
Independent bookstores are a dying breed. An especially vulnerable strain of independent seller is the LGBTQ-specific shop. Bureau of General Services--Queer Division, the only LGBTQ-exclusive bookstore left in Manhattan, has to vacate it current digs by August 31, and its owners need to raise $50,000 in the next 50 days to find new ones.
Proprietors of BGSQD have rented the Strange Loop Gallery in the Lower East Side since last November.
"Minister of Propaganda" Greg Newton and his partner, "Minister of the Interior and the Exterior" Donnie Jochum, set up shop to address a critical need: the absolute dearth of queer-focused bookstores in Manhattan.
As their Indiegogo video notes, BGSQD was born to fill the vacuum left by the closing of two of Manhattan's iconic LGBTQ-specific bookstores and community spaces, the Oscar Wilde Memorial Bookstore and the New York branch of A Different Light, which shuttered more than a decade ago.
Read more at http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2013/07/manhattans_only.php