Photo-Illustration: curbed; Photos: Getty

Around four on a recent Thursday afternoon, the second floor of the Center for Fiction buzzed with a near-silent hum of productivity. Light streamed through the floor-to-ceiling windows as writers hunched over their laptops. A giant mural of Toni Morrison smiled in the stairwell. A lost-and-found table bore more forgotten water bottles than an Ultimate Frisbee tournament. But all was not well at the literary nonprofit: Sometimes, especially on weekday mornings, there aren’t enough desks. “Everybody is complaining,” says a current member, a novelist. And there was more trouble on the horizon: “It’s going to get worse when it’s too cold to use the outdoor terrace.”

Originally known as the Mercantile Library, the Center was founded in 1820, decades before the city’s public-library system, backed by the businessmen of Manhattan’s growing merchant class who wanted to keep their employees “away from the rumshop and the billiard room.” Membership has two tiers: General members pay $180 a year for access to several bright, airy, bookshelf-lined rooms on the second floor of the BKSK-designed space. But for $250 a month, 100 or so Writers Studio members can secure access to a separate, even brighter and airier space with individual desks. (This is significantly more expensive than, say, bringing a laptop to a coffee shop but significantly cheaper than the WeWork on Dean Street, which is comparatively charmless and where one might have to share a kitchen with unsavory AI-start-up types.) All desks and table space exist on a first-come, first-served basis, which, when they’re all full, has led to about as much aggression as the average writer can muster — piercing glares, raised eyebrows, and uncharitable speculation: “A lot of whispering about who’s really a writer and who’s just a ‘creative’ doing Zoom calls,” says a former member who left the Center over the apparent overcrowding.

A lot of whispering indeed. “There were certain people I suspected were lawyers or businesspeople just doing an office job,” says Erica Peplin, who wrote and edited most of her novel over the course of three years there before letting her membership lapse in the spring. But therein lies another tension at the Center: Isn’t not-writing a sacred part of being a writer? Well, yes. “I think about all the times I’ve gone there with the intention of writing and just ended up going online,” says Peplin. James Yeh, a longtime associate of the Center who began teaching there this year, also admits to “desecrating” the space sometimes. (He isn’t above rotely checking his email.) But the shame he feels afterward is instructive, perhaps even motivating: “It’s nice to have a space that feels desecrated by those things,” he says, laughing. “I’m there to aspire to something higher.” All the same, space is tight, Yeh admits. “I’m glad it’s popular. I’m glad people are using it,” he tells me. “But I wouldn’t want it to become too much more popular.”

To secure a desk, savvy members have started to time their visits to off hours. “Friday at 4:30 p.m. is a dream,” says Amy Hubbard, a general member. “Then, it’s a perfect space to get writing done.” Still, given the expense and the potential hassle, why pay? “The space really transcends the physical,” says Hubbard. “It’s not just about having a desk to work on your novel but also incidental encounters with other writers, who sometimes you need to talk you off the ledge.” Although, sometimes, those incidental encounters become something else: An afternoon tea organized by the Center — advertised as an opportunity for members to talk about “any process, editorial, literary and/or professional concerns with other writers” — turned into a gripe session about the Wi-Fi. (As it turned out, someone had been using the internet to download movies.)

Per the Center, the desk shortage is a nice-enough problem to have for a smallish nonprofit — a reflection of “our expanding community of readers and writers and the importance of creative space and connection.” That said, it has heard its members’ cries: “We are thrilled by the enthusiasm and aim to continually engage with our members to improve their experience as we grow.” (Also: The Center has reconfigured the Wi-Fi.) The first-come, first-served system that has caused the current friction is itself the result of a reform effort: Previously, members of the Writers Studio could book desk time in advance, which seems like a good idea except that people frequently didn’t show up for their appointed time, or showed up late, leaving desk space open during the Studio’s busiest hours and frustrating everyone. The Center has also opened overflow space elsewhere on the second floor for Writers Studio members in the morning, before the hoi polloi of the general membership arrive.

On the afternoon I visited, the communal tables were mostly full, writers sitting shoulder to shoulder. There were plenty of desks available in the more secluded Writers Studio, but still, the issue loomed: “Is the Writers Studio full?” read a piece of paper attached to a clipboard by the door. “We’re asking you to let us know here whenever you can’t find a desk.” According to this piece of paper, at least, the Writers Studio was completely full no less than seven times in one three-week span. And yet members press on — to write and to gripe. “It’s like working out,” the novelist tells me. “If I couldn’t get on the elliptical at Chelsea Piers, I would be pissy about it.”

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