WASHINGTON HEIGHTS — The organizer behind a collection of free outdoor community bookshelves has launched an online fundraising campaign to support the effort after some of the shelves were repeatedly damaged by weather and vandals.
Fort George resident Kevin Klepper's seven mini-libraries, which are placed at various street corners Uptown, operate on a simple philosophy: drop a book off and pick a book up.
Klepper, who owns his own construction company, outfits each shelf with a sheet of heavy plastic that can be rolled down to protect the books from the elements. He also makes regular rounds to inspect the shelves.
But they are not immune to damage.
Klepper said people often fail to reposition the plastic covering after browsing the books, resulting in water damage.
“I’ve had a lot of ruination of books, which is sad,” he said.
Klepper explained that the shelves he placed at Dyckman Street and Broadway and at Indian Road and 218th Street have been repeatedly damaged. The plastic covers have been ripped off, decorations such as flowerpots have been stolen, and the bookcases have been tagged with graffiti, he said.
In the past six months, Klepper said he has had to replace the shelf near Indian Road two times.
“I’m tired out,” he said.
Klepper founded the NoMat Book Club in the fall of 2012, when he helped to clean out the apartment of 99-year-old Uptown resident who had passed away.
“Her apartment was loaded from floor to ceiling with shelves and books,” he explained. “I grabbed a shelf and loaded my van with books and drove them down to the Starbucks at 181st Street.”
The first shelf was so popular that Klepper decided to expand, placing shelves at eight other Uptown locations. He maintained seven of those through the years.
Sometimes people find treasures, like Maria Florez, who picked up a vintage children’s picture book while browsing the 181st Street shelf earlier this week.
“I’ve seen things like this in other places,” said Florez, 23, who was visiting Washington Heights from London. “I think it’s a great initiative.”
Klepper was considering shutting the project down given the recent damage, but instead decided to reach out to the community for support.
He thought his best bet would be to have special shelves made that would be protected from the weather and other hazards. He's now trying to raise $10,000 through a GoFundMe campaign for the shelves, which he described as similar to the boxes that hold free newspapers but about triple the size.
“They are weather-proof. Kids can jump on them, whatever they want, but they can’t destroy them,” he said.
Klepper estimated that it would cost about $1,000 to have each shelf made. His campaign has raised $235 in the first few days of the effort.
Klepper said that if there were any money leftover from the campaign, he would bring NoMat bookshelves to additional locations.
“My thoughts are to try to grow it,” he said. “I want to be by the 1 train. I want to try to get down by Columbia and Yeshiva University. That was my plan before I had to keep going back to repair shelves.”
Klepper is also hoping to attract individuals or community organizations that may be willing to adopt particular shelves and help care for them.
He said without either financial or volunteer support, he would not be able to keep the project going.
“When I see little kids or older people use them, it really means something to me,” he said. “But I don’t have the energy or the time to keep doing this alone.”
Residents said they would be sad to see the shelves go.
“I think it adds individuality and speaks a little bit about community,” said Salvador Bolivar, a program coordinator at the Cinema School in The Bronx, who stopped by the 181st Street shelf on Tuesday to drop off some books.
“New York has kind of lost that sense in the last 20 years,” Bolivar noted. “This is a way to reclaim that... to say we’re a community that shares books. We share knowledge.”
