How Bread Stuy Didn't Die
Over the weekend the Times had a piece on how community members rallied to save Bread Stuy after it was shut down by the feds. The article looked at how people in neighborhood see the 6-year-old coffee shop as “part of the fabric of the community,” and threw three fundraisers to help its owners pay…

Over the weekend the Times had a piece on how community members rallied to save Bread Stuy after it was shut down by the feds. The article looked at how people in neighborhood see the 6-year-old coffee shop as “part of the fabric of the community,” and threw three fundraisers to help its owners pay the $10,000 they owed in tax penalties. The outpouring has given Bread Stuy’s owners both a psychological and financial boost: “Having run through their savings and being unable to leverage their home, they thought they would simply have to move back to Oakland, Calif., where they lived before coming to New York in 2000. But the generosity of the neighborhood—one woman gave Mr. Porter $25 on the street ‘for milk and Pampers,’ he said, reducing him to tears—has given the couple new resolve. ‘Every day, I am making coffee with a purpose,’ he said. ‘Like, ‘I am going to make the best cup of coffee in America.’ We’re going to make this happen.'”
Saving a Place to Bump Into People [NY Times]
Bread Stuy Seized By Feds [Brownstoner]
Photo by anonymous rose.
Ok, when we do the 2010 PLUSA awards, we need a new category — biggest misanthrope.
I agree that this place is great and this is exactly the kind of fabric needed to build the community.
But to say it was “shut down by the feds” implies that they are victims of some larger oppression, when in reality they just weren’t paying their tax bills!
Gee- I’ll try, THL but the bar for this kind of thinking is set so low I don’t think I can. That award must go to the esteemed b-word.
I’m not the right person to ask Bxgrl.
Remember, I try to assist the community too. I take stray cats and pay for them to be neutered out of my own pocket to help control the feral population in the community. I even give them free food, water and a relatively warm spot to sleep at night should they need it. Reading this I’m now positive that my money should be going to something more beneficial but I’m just to stupid to know what.
Also, I’d appreciate it if you’d go ahead and assume that because I do the above that’s the only thing I do.
Please, make sure you close your mind to the thought that I might give to other charities, I might help the elderly or other neighbors in need, that I attend community board meetings, block assoc. meetings or do anything else to volunteer my time aid my community.
I would THL but I am busy cutting my wrists at the thought the community actually banded together to help someone. What is the world coming to? 🙂
Honestly Bxgrl and I’m not trying to be facetious but I have no ties to this community, I gain nothing by it’s being open there yet, I see a story like this and I think, “Oh that’s nice, people helping people”. Why? It’s refreshing to see people reaching out to help others.
Maybe I’m just wacky that way. Or, maybe I should be less tolerant of peoples urge to assist those not deemed deserving. Perhaps I am the insufferable one for not seeing that this is NOT a ‘feel good’ story but a story showing how stupid and misguided people can be.
Shoot me now for being so damned blind.
Benson, I really don’t know what your problem is. Why have such rants against a coffee shop? If Nick’s Diner in Bayside held a rally for whatever reason, and it was a beloved COMMUNITY spot, it would have had success, and press attention. What is wrong with that? There have been plenty of places that have had their communities rally around them when there is trouble, danger of closing, whatever. It’s what people in a community do when businesses and institutions that they support are in trouble, or need help. We don’t all just live in our homes, walk to work in a vaccuum, and never interact with the people and businesses around us. We patronize them, talk to the owners and workers, and form bonds of friendship, comraderie, or at the very least, politeness and recognition of their presense, and our participation in them staying open, and the mutual benefits to both parties. Spots like this, as you well know, are reasons people move to, or stay in neighborhoods.
Bed Stuy used to have plenty of neighborhood spots like this, but most were long gone in the last 20 years. The fact that someone opened a successful business, and has the support of neighbors and friends is a good thing, and should be applauded, not derided. The fact that those neighbors chose to help keep them open is a wonderful statement about both owner and patrons.
“Please shoot me”
“Simply nauseating”
Benson–you seem to be going out of your way to validate my thinly veiled description of you as dyspeptic.
I know I’ve sometimes been unfair in attempting to ridicule you, but I can’t understand how anyone can be so mean spirited in many of his posts, while showing a wicked (in a good way) sense of humor in others.
BTW, as traditionalmod observed, K-Dog & Dunebuggy, our local PLG cafe fills a role similar to Bread Stuy and it doesn’t even have the word community in it’s title. Does that make it less “nauseating”?
“Blowhard Bob”
benson–you are right that some of those littler community things don’t get noticed and are undervalued, but to take it out on Bread Stuy is wrong headed. Regardless of whatever other issues Bed Stuy has as a neighborhood, I can vouch for the fact that this place is crucial to the street life and general livability of that part of stuy heights. Its a gathering spot, meeting house, restaurant, and neighborhood hub all in one and regardless of what you think about the fawning press coverage its a damn good thing those people did and I hope that Bread Stuy can keep on keeping on.