I wanted something that felt a little more freaky within the town while still honoring its history. Her vision was a retreat that encouraged guests to embrace their weirdness and put it on display. Dev imagined an aesthetic loosely inspired by an old circus, hearkening to a place where everyone is accepted and eccentricity is the norm.
"I'm very plugged into the writer community, I'm friends with a lot of great writers, and wanted to be able to bring those writers into our community," she said. "Whenever you have big book events in the city, they're not at Black bookstores and they're not in Black neighborhoods, so I really wanted to bring that to Bed-Stuy. People should expect all of their writing heroes."
Over the pandemic, I really developed a sense of community with the other neighbors in very close proximity to my own apartment and just felt like I was really dialed in and connected to the people in Park Slope,
One high point came early on, realising, pretty soon after we opened, that the shop was so much more than just a shop. It's a public space for magazine lovers to meet like-minded people: other readers, publishers, wannabe publishers. One example was fashion designer Junya Watanabe, who liked our black totes so much he bought several hundred and incorporated them into a shirt in his next season.
Inspired by owner Craig Florence's time working at Paris's Shakespeare and Company (a hub for English-speaking expat writers and readers since 1951), Mother Foucault's is an old-world paradise for artists and intellectuals. The aesthetic lends authenticity to Runkel's Platonic dialogues. "I took my boyfriend here on our first date so he would think I was cool," he says. And the kids love that Florence doesn't care if they buy anything.
"My space is a place for activism. My space is a place for women of color to feel safe," Arana told Daily Coffee News. "It's a place for the Latino community to feel seen and represented, and just a safe space for anybody."
"Before we had coffee machines and frothers, you needed to get air into your beverages," says Thomas. "Most of the people who do it are taller than I am and have longer arms. So their arm actually goes up to a meter. I don't know if my wingspan is that large. We try to get it as far as we can."
Its oval form and round windows break away from the rigid geometry of the surrounding urban blocks. This building curves like the nearby Georges River it's inspired by, creating a gentle pull for people to step inside.
"An adjustable swimming pool floor brings flexibility to the space that was once the church's nave, allowing it to host a variety of activities in addition to swimming."
