AMANDA PALMER WAS fresh off a sold-out show for 700 at the Highline Ballroom in Chelsea. And author Neil Gaiman, his best-selling novella Coraline having been adapted into a feature film, could have sold just as many tickets on his own.The duo, a sort of a gothic Vaudeville act, boasts thousands of alternative music and lit fans, but June 3 they debuted unreleased stories and songs from a cramped, makeshift stage to a crowd of just 250.
It was the edgy type of a collaboration that, once upon a time, would have taken place at some artsy venue. Now those spaces are closing and Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, the non-profit on Crosby Street run by AIDS charity Housing Works, Inc., is one of the few Manhattan venues left that has a will or way to pick up the slack.
In recent months, the bookstore has hosted performances by Bjork,The Dirty Projectors and Augusten Burroughs in addition to lending its ramshackle stage to reading groups and improv troupes. For a shop once known for occasional readings and overpriced paperbacks, becoming a perform ance space in the heart of Soho has brought a significant amount of cachet—and not a small amount of cash. The Bookstore Cafe, one of Housing Works’ many business ventures, including nine high-end thrift shops, two cafés and a catering service, rakes in about $340,000 in annual profit.
Alan Light, founder of VIBE magazine and co-chair of the bookstore’s board, has lured some of the most prestigious artists to Housing Works. His “Live from Home” music series has featured Lyle Lovett, Bright Eyes, John Mayer and Nick Lowe. The surge of attention-grabbing events at Housing Works was due, in part, to a directorial shakeup.
“Bring[ing] in people for the new contacts, the new Rolodexes,” as Light put it. “We wanted to…open up some more.”
The store has hired a new events director, Six Word Memoir author Rachel Fershleiser, who aims to keep vying for big-name acts while bringing in lots of interactive programming, including a new literary quiz show with Don’t Know Much About History writer Ken Davis. Housing Works has also taken on programming from venues that have shut their doors; Fershleiser is very upfront about snatching up homeless acts from now-defunct competitors.
“If a place like Mo Pitkins closes, we think, ‘Let’s check out their acts,’” she says. Indeed, since the Oscar Wilde bookstore closed earlier this year, Housing Works planned its own gay reading series. It has also brought in a Manhattan version of the Williamsburg Spelling Bee at Pete’s Candy Store and gained programming from storytelling behemoth The Moth. After comedy impresario Jessi Klein’s stand-up series lost its home at East Village burlesquerie Rafifi, the show moved to Housing Works.
“As a bonus, we get to feel like we’re doing something good, but I don’t think about that too much,” mused Klein’s cohost Pete Holmes. He’s happy since a bookstore “is the only place I can do my James Joyce dick jokes.”
Housing Works has a lock on its crowd, which piles into the bookstore for events. For a big name, the crowd will drop thousands of dollars on tickets and the store’s café fare; Housing Works made more than $60,000 when John Mellencamp recently played. But the success of events also leaves Housing Works facing an existential quandary: How to balance the indie bookstore vibe while raising money for AIDS services.
Housing Works could potentially make more money if it hosted events in a larger space. A lot more. “The most money I’ve ever raised for an event is $60,000.That’s a lot of money for 300 people, but we could raise a million dollars,” says Susie Lupert, the store’s executive director.
Since the bookstore’s entire revenue stream is $2.5 million per year, that million is a lot of extra money going to AIDS services.Though it may not be that simple.
“I think part of what makes our bigname acts so successful is seeing them in our space. Seeing Bjork at Housing Works is not seeing Bjork at Madison Square Garden,” said Fershleiser.
If Housing Works really wanted to ratchet up the income, however, it would completely gut the book side of its venture. Lupert pointed out that, even though all the books are donated and mostly volunteers staff the store, the bookstore “would not even come close to breaking even” without events. A damning sign for a venue that takes pride in its bookstore feel. The “intimate” setup also has its downsides.
At the Gaiman/Palmer event, the audience members were crowded around the stage, on stairwells and the balcony.The two puny ceiling fans couldn’t keep the crowd comfortable, and pillars and sound equipment obstructed many views. Chowing down on some of the café’s kick-ass quiche among a crowd of 100 or so at the weekly Klein comedy series, the space had its charm.When it’s cramped and smells like old books and hot bodies, not so much. “Should we take a show…and do it at Town Hall?” asked Light. “I go back to when we started.The idea wasn’t ‘how much money can we make?’The idea is how can we make as many people as possible aware of the store.”
Ultimately, it comes down to whether or not charity businesses should pursue earnings as doggedly as a corporation. Housing Works has bandied around the idea of creating an event space in its lower levels, which may be the ideal compromise between resuscitating lost gems of Downtown culture and funding the fight against AIDS. Intimacy has its limits, but, done right, it’s a hell of a lot more inspiring than an organization bagging cash with as little regard for independent culture as corporate CEOs padding their bonuses.
Though Bjork, Gaiman and Mellencamp have already passed through, the questions about Housing Work’s high-profile events are not going to go away anytime soon. “There are a bunch of big-name bands I’m stalking [to perform],” Fershleiser says. Sounds like the store is going to be packed for many nights to come.
> Elizabeth & The Catapult, Miracles of Modern Science
June 24, Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, 126 Crosby St. (betw. E. Houston & Jersey Sts.), 212-334-3324; 7, $15
