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When Dorit Avganim opened her West Philly vintage store, she envisioned the space not just full of relics, but also community.
“The point of what I’m doing is trying to show how you’re not taking away from your business in making private spaces more public.”
Dorit Avganim, Manzanita
Avganim owns Manzanita, a shop on Baltimore Avenue that sells clothing, accessories, home goods and beauty products. Since opening in 2024, the bright orange storefront has hosted more than a hundred community events, she told Technical.ly, with the goal of bringing people together by listening and responding to residents’ needs.
“I had a feeling that if I made the space available, people would activate the space,” Avganim said. ”People want to be together.”
Many of the people who come into Avganim’s store say they had never thought about what kind of events they could host, she said. Knowing there’s a space available, though, people get creative with how they bring their community together.
The space has become a hub for community-led concerts, poetry readings and crafting circles, among other gatherings. A few weeks ago, the store hosted a grief circle for a patron who wrote a book of poetry about the loss of a friend, she said.
Manzanita also hosts quarterly collaborative events with other local orgs, like free community meals or clothing swaps. Last spring, the store partnered with Party Girl Bake Club to host a month-long food and fashion display called the Museum of Butter.
Owner Dorit Avganim personally chooses all of the items in her shop (Sarah Huffman/Technical.ly)
The store got here by focusing on being a gathering place right from the start, Avganim said.
When she first opened, Avganim told everyone who walked through the door that the store was a free community space and asked whether they wanted to host an event.
“The point of what I’m doing is trying to show how you’re not taking away from your business in making private spaces more public,” she said. “You’re actually creating a sense of safety and autonomy in your community at large by doing that.”
A strong business foundation, however, is what keeps those opportunities open.
Manzanita hosts everything from concerts to crafting circles (Courtesy Dorit Avganim)
From research to retail
Avganim began her career in entertainment, but on the side, she also had an interest in the idea of privately owned public space.
Before moving to Philly, Avganim wrote her Ph.D. thesis about how digital inequities can impact commercial corridors. But she didn’t want to work on urban policies at a desk job — she wanted to be an active member of the community she lived in, she said.
So, when Avganim came here eight years ago to be closer to her husband’s family, she eventually decided to open Manzanita. The store carries items made by local artists and makers, and she takes requests from customers about what they want to see, she said.
Manzanita sells clothing, accessories, home goods and beauty products (Sarah Huffman/Technical.ly)
Community access to the space can only happen if the retail business is doing well, according to Avganim. That’s why she makes sure that the products Manzanita carries are curated and in demand.
Looking ahead, Avganim wants to launch a program where the neighborhood would nominate entrepreneurs to do longer-term pop-ups within Manzanita’s space. This would require moving to a larger storefront, she said.
Dorit Avganim opened Manzanita to be a community hub (Sarah Huffman/Technical.ly)
Ultimately, it would be a step toward her vision of community members being able to choose the stores in their community, she said.
“Part of what Manzanita represents, and part of what I hope my work can indicate for others, is that you can work where you are,” Avganim said. “You can dig in deep to the spaces where you actually live.”