Gladys Books and Wine in Bed-Stuy is working to recover after suffering multiple incidents of water damage in recent weeks.<\/p>\n
While owner Tiffany Dockery says flooding has been an ongoing issue at 306 Malcolm X Boulevard, she had mostly figured out how to deal with it.<\/p>\n
What happened on May 20 was a different story, though, with nearly a foot of water collecting in the basement, which is used as the bar area.<\/p>\n
“Each time, you’re like ‘can we withstand another one?'” she said. “Honestly, this last flooding was kind of the knockout punch.”<\/p>\n
Dockery used her life savings to open Gladys as a space specifically for the Black Queer community.<\/p>\n
“I view this as a duty because I am the product of what happens when you have stories that reflect you,” she explained.<\/p>\n
But after the first flood on May 20, and then another a few days later when it rained once more, Dockery says the landlords told her it was “an act of God,” and therefore, not their responsibility to fix.<\/p>\n
“It has felt spiritual,” she said of the days and weeks after that. “It has felt like I’ve had to dig into the deepest parts of myself to say, like, ‘Do I believe this can work?'”<\/p>\n
Then this past Thursday, a separate plumbing issue caused water to leak from the ceiling.<\/p>\n
Dockery had to close again for repairs on Saturday, which is usually her busiest day of the week.<\/p>\n
“I cried,” she admitted, “but I come from a line of people that don’t quit.”<\/p>\n
Thanks to her community, she has not needed to quit.<\/p>\n
More than $50,000 to support cleanup and repairs was raised through an online campaign, while neighbors and local leaders helped her apply pressure to the landlords.<\/p>\n
“The thing that really changed is the community got involved,” Dockery said, “and that’s what inspires me.”<\/p>\n
In just the last week, Dockery says the landlords have committed to both fixing the main sewer line and installing a check valve back, two things that should, in theory, finally fix the flooding issues.<\/p>\n
“I want to show people that not only do people value our stories, but that people value our business – we just need to be given a fair chance,” she said.<\/p>\n
To get that fair chance, she is now fighting to be reimbursed by the landlords and her insurance for both the repairs and the money she lost while she was closed.<\/p>\n
As for the community, she is planning to cook at the store on Juneteenth and give out free meals to as many people as possible as a way to say thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gladys Books and Wine in Bed-Stuy is working to recover after suffering multiple incidents of water damage in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269382,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-269381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}