In Brooklyn Store, Everything Is Always 100% Off.

[elleng]

For six weeks, a group of people have been engaged in an unusual project in Bedford-Stuyvesant that they are calling the Brooklyn Free Store, where everything is available for the taking and nothing is for sale. . .

A handwritten sign reads “Take what you want. Share what you think others may enjoy (not limited to material items).”


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/16/nyregion/16free.html

[The_Commonist]

1. I saw that article this morning.

I'm gonna go check it out this weekend...

[scarletwoman]

2. Okay, I read the whole piece at the link before commenting.

So, cool, it's happening in Brooklyn right now. But it's certainly nothing new.

From the mid-60s on there have been "Free Stores" all over the place. I've taken from and donated to Free Stores in Minneapolis, MN, Breckinridge, CO, Venice, CA, Santa Cruz, CA, Bolinas, Ca, Lopez Island, WA, Orcas Island, WA from the late 60s to the mid-80s.

Good for the Brooklynites, though. It's a timeless idea that deserves to continue on.

sw

[malaise]

4. Hope continues

I like it.

[Earth_First]

3. Morgan Spurlock utilized one of these in on of his '30 Days' episodes...

I forget which particular city he was in for his social experiment of living at minimum wage for 30 days.

It's next to impossible; and I hope that it at least changed the opinion of ONE individual who claim how particularly easy it is to pull onesself up by the bootstraps.

At minimum wage, it IS impossible.

I hope that this is able to benefit the many in the Bronx during it's duration, and I would love to hear that it becomes a permanent fixture of the community.

+1

[flvegan]

5. Columbus, Ohio

I've watched that episode a dozen times. I love the 30 Days series, and having the few that they made streaming live on Netflix has been very entertaining.

[Earth_First]

6. Thank you!

The wife and I just blasted through the Season 3 installment that was just recently added to Netflix...

[flvegan]

7. Series 3 comes and goes on Netflix.

After the last coal disaster several months ago, I went looking for that episode to watch again, and all of Series 3 had been taken down. Pissed me off.

[Tesha]

8. Along similar lines, our city's dump used to have something called "The Swap Shop"

The principle was that you could drop off stuff
that was still pretty good but you had no need for
while picking up stuff that others had dropped off.
There was no requirement that you keep "in balance"
in any way.

Quite a few things in our house came from "The
Swap Shop". And we, in return, sent a lot of
really good but no-longer-useful-to-us stuff
there. We know it was appreciated because often,
we wouldn't even get our "junk" set down before
someone took it from us. Ten years of "Scientific
American"? "Sure, great!" Does those old VCRs work?
"I'll gladly take them!" Kid's toys? "My kids will
love those!"

Unfortunately, The Swap Shop eventually attracted
a coterie of grifters and the sorts of folks who
run those "permanent yard sales" that you see at
the same houses week-end after week-end. They'd
park there as long as they were allowed and vacuum
up everything worth anything simply to take it
home and sell for cash. And rather than solve
the problem of what to do with those folks, the
city just closed down The Swap Shop.

So now not only do we not have a place to get great
stuff free, but we don't have a great place to send
our cast-offs. (Nowadays, we send a lot to the
Salvation Army and gladly take the tax write-off,
but we've never been very happy with their attitude
towards gays or politics in general. And there's
no Good Will nearby.)

Communism can only work when there are controls
placed upon Republicans.

Atlant

[niyad]

10. check with your local women's shelter for things you want to donate

[Tesha]

13. We've done that. And the "Old folks' homes". And the local "Savers" store...

...run by the Epilepsy Foundation.

And while all are good, worthy causes that we've
successfully managed to donate to, none have the
immediate gratification of hauling things off to The
Swap Shop and seeing them immediately taken into
use. Nor do we get to score any new cool free junque
for ourselves ;).

Tesha

[G_j]

9. very cool

:applause:

[eridani]

11. See of your area has a Freecycle newsgroup

Give stuff away, or take other peoples' stuff.

[Tesha]

14. I can endorse Freecycle as well! (NT)

[eleny]

12. I remember visitng the Free Store in lower Manhattan in the late 1960s

My brother had some spare motorcycle parts to donate so I drove him into the city.

When we walked in one guy turned to another and said, "Hey man, I told you someone would bring them in!".

I'm pretty sure it was the late '60s but it may have been the early '70s. Depends on what car I drove and my memory is dim on that. :D