This is the fourth installment of a weekly blog hosted at Brownstoner chronicling the design and construction of Greenlight Bookstore at 686 Fulton Street in Fort Greene. Written by project architect Frederick Tang of deFT Projects.

gl01_082109.jpgGood news at Greenlight! After weeks of eager anticipation, the DOB finally granted us our building permit this week. It was touch and go for a bit but our expediter came through! We’re all hands on deck now working towards opening as soon as possible. Next week we will have construction photos of the space to show you, but this week, we decided to discuss one of the key pieces of millwork—the cash wrap.

As the old adage goes, put your best chandelier in the place where the most people will see it—the bathroom. For a bookstore, the most heavily trafficked area will be the cash register/check-out area. In addition to being one of the design centerpieces of the store, there is a variety of technical and logistical requirements that go into the design. There isn’t a formal “staff office” in the store and most of the administrative tasks for the staff will be done on the floor, either at the front cash wrap or a station in the back. Because of this, there needs to be ample workspace for computers and storage for “back of house” items but it is also one of the most valuable display areas from the customer standpoint.

gl02_082109.jpgIn material and shape, the cash wrap we’ve designed echoes the surrounding palette and geometry of the space. It is a mix of solid maple and painted white wood and is angled to allow for traffic flow around the chamfered air shaft. And it is located near the front of the store at a location that allows the staff to see as much of the store as possible. (There will be a secondary staff station “info desk” in the rear of the store.)

We treated the cash wrap as if it were a solid chunk of wood which was then carved out at the edges with display niches. The front of the check-out where the customer stands has a lower box of display for specialty items and another display box is carved out of the elbow at the counter surface for stacks of books.
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For the transaction counter, we’re making a glass shadow box that holds pieces of salvaged tin ceiling. The front of the store originally had a tin ceiling and while we would have loved to retain this for the store, it proved to be too patchy and beaten-up to keep. There were small portions of it, however, that we took down and salvaged for other uses.

We like the idea of incorporating some of the historic character of the space into the new pieces that we were building. And the transaction counter (the place that most people will see) seemed like the appropriate location for this salvaged material.
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What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

  1. This looks really nice– and I’m so happy that an independent bookstore is opening in the neighborhood. Can’t wait to shop there. In fact, I’ll rally friends to buy books there, too…