This week, the Uni Project brought our reading room cart to the Talking Transitions tent in Lower Manhattan, where New Yorkers convened to discuss the Mayoral transition and the future of the city. This historic public forum was initiated by the Open Society Foundation and funded by a coalition of leading foundations, including the FordFoundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. (NY Times and NY Magazine). Although not organized by the DeBlasio campaign, the Mayor-Elect visited the tent and paid tribute to this remarkable effort to inject campaign-level energy into transition issues.
The organizers clearly understand that we need to invest in our democracy generally, not just in taking political sides. To do so, they rapidly created a vibrant and engaging civic space (with beer!) where people could gather, share, listen, and learn. In a few days, the space will return to being a vacant lot, but the city will be permanently changed. In a small way, that’s exactly what we aim to do with a pop-up reading room. (Logistics lovers may enjoy this time-lapse video of the Transition Tent going up.)
The Uni cart approached the massive pop-up Transition Tent like an eager, younger sibling…
Can you spot the pop-up library in this shot? Being small until you need to go big is one of our assets.
Jeff Malamy from NYC DOT Commissioner’s Office delivered a cube of DOT-curated books.
This woman said her sister was an aspiring writer. We told her about 826 NYC, the place for young writers in NYC. 826NYC has a curated shelf in the Uni collection.
At night, democracy heated up, and people were up on furniture. (We kept folks off the Uni though—safety first.)
Thanks to everyone who made this event and our participation possible. We were honored to play a role.