Community Bookstore's Catherine Bohne Brings the War to Park Slope

Park Slope's Community Bookstore has always been a quiet place. A dark, cramped, well-stocked neighborhood landmark. When the inevitable Barnes & Noble opened up a few blocks away, the independently owned bookstore not only survived, but seemed to thrive in response.

More than just a simple bookstore, they sport a pleasant little cafe in the back, and sponsor occasional readings by neighborhood authors. Over the years, the owners have done what they could to foster a real sense of, well, community within the shop. Never was this more evident than in the days following Sept. 11, when the store became Park Slope's central drop-off point for food, clothing and supplies.

"It was huge," owner Catherine Bohne told me. "One thing added to another, and we ended up being this huge center. People from the hospital were bringing us medical supplies to get down there because they didn't know how to get things there. All sorts of different people came together."

They didn't only distribute supplies to Ground Zero?they also became a contact point for information. "People were just milling around the streets, sharing anecdotal evidence about what was going on," she said. "Whenever somebody would come by with information, we would make a little handwritten sign and throw it in the window. The entire window got plastered over, and so people got very used to stopping by to see what was happening. It functioned very well for a couple weeks that way."

After things quieted down some, the window was eventually cleaned up and they once again concentrated on the business of selling books.

Shortly after bombs started dropping in Afghanistan, she told me, "someone sat me down and gave me this lecture and said, 'As a bookstore, you can't afford to be political, you can't afford to alienate customers. Nobody needs to know what your opinion is.' I just had this moment of feeling absolutely ill about what was going on."

She returned to the front window, once again transforming it into an information depository. This time, however, things were slightly different.

"I put up anything that wasn't commonly being reported that gave some piece of evidence to this puzzle of what on earth was happening." First thing up was a map. "That was a good place to start. Then various articles about U.S. sanctions and the effects on Iraq. People were asking, 'Why do they hate us?' Well, here's what seems to be a very important piece of the puzzle that we're not hearing about..."

She posted articles about the CIA's involvement in the heroin trade, and the minutes from Unical's presentation before a House subcommittee meeting. She also left photocopies of the articles at the front desk for anyone who wanted them.

"On the whole, people were amazingly grateful. People were picking up and distributing hundreds of photocopies. Teachers were using them in school." The store also held readings and lectures regarding the war. "Every Sunday night for most of November into December, there was somebody made available to be asked questions."

It wasn't until she hung a poster advertising Mark Crispin Miller's The Bush Dyslexicon?a collection of the President's verbal gaffes whose cover features a decidedly unflattering photo?that the trouble started. Soon there were patriotic, anti-Community Bookstore fliers appearing on nearby mailboxes and lampposts. People who did not appreciate her antiwar stance at such a time marched into the store to debate.

"Somebody was clearly coming in and leaving one copy of this Peggy Noonan article on top of the other photocopies every day," Bohne said. "It was this thing about racial profiling and how we needed to start doing that."

Then one night she found herself stuck at the store, trying to fix a computer problem. "As I was standing there banging away on this computer, this guy came in and said, 'Can you tell me what the story is with those articles?... Are they just politically correct?' And I said, 'Well, actually, I think they're politically un-correct at the moment.' He went out the door raving."

It turned out to be the man who'd been leaving the Noonan articles.

"He was clearly trying to engage, on some level. I wanted to talk to him?we should talk to each other and try to figure out what's going on... All weekend I was kicking myself?I'm never going to see him again, I don't know what his name is?I've failed. He was coming in here, no matter how aggressively, to try and engage."

When she returned to the store, she found a letter from the man waiting for her.

"I thought it was really touching. He'd written me this letter, called me the thought police and said that while I was completely in my right to put whatever I want in my window, I was being completely one-sided and unfair. He signed his name, then in pen had written in his address. He was that eager to engage. He was doing everything he could to let me get in touch with him."

Bohne took to writing and rewriting a response to him on an almost nightly basis?but she never mailed it.

In the meantime, public reactions against the store grew in intensity. More people were coming in to confront her. Others scrawled, "Whose side are you on?" across the photocopies at the front desk. One night, she discovered that someone had written "Anti-US" across the store's front window in lipstick. Store employees grew more antsy, afraid that at any moment a brick would sail through the window.

Bohne sat down and wrote a personal statement concerning what was happening at the store. In it she cited Thomas Jefferson, claiming that she was by no means "anti-American," but would not follow her government blindly. She made no apologies for what she had done, nor did she apologize for "politicizing" the bookstore. She posted the statement in the front window.

After it went up, she said, all the attacks on her store stopped.

"The really happy ending is that one day I was cleaning the window," she said, "and I see someone walking by. Oh my God?it's the guy!"

She got his attention and invited him in.

"I sort of forgot that we were supposed to be fighting. I said, 'I'm so glad to see you?I'm real sorry it's taken me so long to write this thing, but I want you to know that I'm taking you seriously and really want to answer you.' I was babbling. He sort of rocks back on his heels. Then he leans forward and says, 'I wanna tell you something?anyone writes on your window in lipstick, you come and get me and I'll help you clean it off, 'cause that's not right.' Then he said, 'Don't get me wrong?I'm still gonna fight you every step of the way.' And I said, 'Fine.' And this beautiful friendship was born."

Bohne told me she feels that, in the aftermath of the attacks and the midst of a foreign war, what happened at Community Bookstore is very important.

"We stood up and said, 'We have questions, dammit.' And there's nothing wrong with that. It's like the whole neighborhood let out this collective sigh of relief."