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.
Well some people like to conduct the bulk of their social interactions live in person face-to-face, not just anonymously on blogs.
rob- the community sees Bread-Stuy as an important part of the community because it is a gathering place, a family place. It was one of the businesses that showcased local people doing positive things in Bed-Stuy and wasn’t another bullet-proof takeout store, as Chris Rock would have phrased it. It’s this kind of community response that makes NYC living worthwhile. Would that other neighborhoods did the same – maybe some people wouldn’t be so bitter about how real communities function.
not to be a debbie downer, but arent their bigger and more important issues in the bed stuy community that need addressing in terms of supportive rallying and private donations? i know it’s important to have neighborhood business anchors like this and im definitely happy for the owners, but it just seems so strange to me, but then again lots of things seem strange to me.
*rob*
K-Dog & Dunebuggy cafe in PLG could have been cited as an example of a community-building coffeeshop in this article too. Everybody knows the owners and employees, we always see somebody we know in there, the cafe serves as a meeting place for local groups and a place to provide the neighborhood with news, notices, petitions, etc. It serves such an important role; I am pleased but not at all surprised Bed-Stuy residents rallied to save their Bread Stuy.
lol, when youre done benson pass that gun to me.
*rob*
You’ve probably never even set foot in Bed-Stuy- your loss.
“Jonathan Landau, who lives near the shop and held one of the fund-raisers, said he moved to Bedford-Stuyvesant two years ago from the Upper West Side because he was looking for the sense of community he found here, with the “Sesame Streetâ€-like brownstone stoop culture and ethos of neighbors helping neighbors. ”
Please shoot me.
no clue, but people must really lurve their muffins and coffee to be able to raise 10,000 dollars to save it.
*rob*
Does anyone out there have a good handle on how much in actual taxes are owed if the penalties are $10K? Are IRS penalties automatically 20% of the overdue tax, or is there some type of sliding scale?