Word Up is Mari’s “most absolute favorite place”—
A community run bookstore that offers tons of bilingual program in Washington Heights.
Please consider consider supporting this amazing bookstore by pre-ordering Love Is Powerful from their website.
From Word Up’s website
WHAT IS WORD UP?
Word Up is a multilingual, general-interest community bookshop and arts space in Washington Heights, New York City, committed to preserving and building a neighborhood in which all residents help each other to live better informed and more expressive lives, using books as an instrument of reciprocal education and exchange, empowering not only themselves, but their community.
Word Up is run by volunteers from the uptown community. By hosting readings, concerts, screenings, art exhibitions, talks and workshops, community meetings, and other activities for kids and adults, we do our best to support and fortify the creative spirit unique to our diverse, uptown community.
Word Up began as a one-month pop-up shop in June 2011 on the corner of 176thStreet and Broadway, then stayed open for over a year at its original location because of overwhelming community demand. After a new landlord ended the original lease, the volunteer collective continued to distribute books and program events. The collective launched a successful fundraising campaign in late 2012, raising more than $70,000 from more than 800 funders, to reopen Word Up in its current, permanent location at 165th Street and Amsterdam Avenue on July 26, 2013.
WHO OPERATES WORD UP?
Word Up is operated by a collective of 60+ neighborhood residents. Since our founding, nearly 500 neighbors have been trained as volunteers at Word Up. We practice horizontal leadership, seeking consensus as much as possible, though weighting decision-making power to those who will execute the work. The majority of volunteers in decision-making roles are women. Among our diverse group of current booksellers, approximately 30 have taken on additional responsibility as keyholders. At any given time, 6–10 volunteers are under the age of 20. Volunteers hail from USA, Dominican Republic, Mexico, etc. Many are longtime uptown residents, and some since birth. Indeed a cross section of the neighborhood, among our volunteers are people from the LGBTQ community, people with visible and non-visible disabilities, and people from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds.