The Bronx's Only Independent Bookstore Opens This Weekend

A bookstore opening in Mott Haven this weekend will be writing a new chapter in Bronx history.

The Lit. Bar, at 131 Alexander Ave., will officially open its doors with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday at noon.

The borough hasn’t had a bookstore since its sole Barnes & Noble shuttered back in 2016. It was that bookstore’s closure — and an ultimately unsuccessful petition to save it — that drove Lit. Bar owner Noëlle Santos to open a new one.

“Up to that point I had measured my success by how far I could get away from the Bronx,” Santos, a Bronx native and resident, told the New York Times. “I was disappointed in myself for thinking about leaving a community in no better condition than I had found it.”

Santos launched a crowdfunding campaign to get the bookstore up and running. The store is stocked with nearly 4,000 books, with special attention paid to stories about African-American and Latino experiences.

“The Lit. Bar looks like… the Bronx, and I want people to also feel like they belong there,” Santos said in an interview with The Today Show.

Teacher and Bronx resident Jeniffer Ellison on Friday told News 4 she looked forward to bringing her daughter to the bookstore.

“The Bronx has been long forgotten, long ignored, and now we’re seeing the pendulum swing the other way. We need more literacy,” she said.

“I live right around the corner, so it’s good that they also see the local faces and know that we appreciate it.”