The Reanimation Library is a a 25,000-volume library in Gowanus, Brooklyn that houses odd, obscure, and other misfit books. The library began as a private collection that ten years ago opened to the public. Now, like most literary venues in New York City, the library might be displaced. The art gallery the library rented space from is closing and a new building owner may boost the rent, but library founder Andrew Beccone told Bedford+Bowery he hopes to keep the library going in some form:
This kind of adaptability is at the library’s core. A brief manifesto handpainted on the wall clarifies Beccone’s mission: “These books have been culled from thrift stores, junk shops, sidewalks, and stoop sales around the country and are offered as resource material for artists, writers, and other cultural archeologists.” He can find books anywhere, so the library’s future is a matter of finding four walls to house it in.
