DUMBO — An independent bookstore in DUMBO needs help to stay afloat in Brooklyn's booming waterfront neighborhood and is looking to raise $80,000.
P.S. Bookshop owner Yuval Gans, who has been selling rare and used books at 76 Front St. in DUMBO for nearly a decade, launched a fundraising campaign on Indiegogo to get the cash he needs to keep his shop alive.
Gans owes $40,000 in commercial real estate taxes, which he agreed to in his lease, but he says he didn't know about the charges until last summer.
His landlord, Two Trees Management, informed him that the taxes are due on July 1 and Gans is struggling to foot the bill.
Gans said he had not received a bill in the last five years in which the taxes have jumped from $3,000 in 2010 to more than $17,000 in 2015.
Two Trees is willing to work out a payment plan with the shop owner, they said.
“The owner has not raised this issue with us, but we would be more than willing to work with P.S. Bookshop to reach a creative solution to ensure that he can cover what is owed in taxes and remain in the space,” a Two Trees spokesman said in a statement.
But Gans will still have to pay the escalating taxes annually — and that strain is enough to make his business fold, he said.
"P.S. Bookshop is facing a possible shutdown due to the rapid escalation of Dumbo's real estate values," he said. "Commercial tax has been doubling with every passing year, in the last year alone it exceeded for me the amount of two months' rent — and the trend continues."
"Then, the question remains of the bookshop's future in the face of the rising costs of doing business in DUMBO."
Gans is hopeful that his neighbors will rally to the cause. He calls secondhand books "a sadly vanishing form" and believes that the culture of passing books from one reader to another should be preserved.
"There's something fundamentally sentimental about it," he said.
He also hosts story time and music event for kids.
As of Friday afternoon Gans had raised $7,269 toward his goal of $80,000.
The additional $40,000 would be used for marketing, social media and event planning that would help the shop with a better business model for the future.
