FORT GREENE — Fort Greene's newly dubbed "Cultural District" has attracted dance, theater, music and art galleries — and now literature will be added to the collection.
The Center for Fiction — founded as the Mercantile Library in 1820 and headquartered at 17 E. 47th St. since 1932 — is planning a move to the BAM North II building, aka EyeBAM, at 280 Ashland Pl., which is scheduled for completion in 2017.
The center is set to join the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Theater for a New Audience, Mark Morris Dance Group and BRIC Arts in the cultural district, bounded by by Flatbush Avenue, Fulton Street and Ashland Place.
The small area will also be home to a slew of museums, dance studios, art galleries, music venues, theaters, restaurants, public plazas and the Rockwell Tower Hotel by 2017.
The Center for Fiction sold its historic white marble home earlier this year for $18 million, according to records. It will stay in its current building until the new space, which cost $5.5 million, is ready for move-in, Brooklyn Eagle reported.
The center carries more than 100,000 fiction titles and also hosts a variety of programs including "workspace, grants, and classes to support emerging writers, reading groups on classic and contemporary authors, and programs to help get kids reading," according to the group's website.
The center also has a bookstore with a vast selection.
“Brooklyn is home to so many great writers — both well-known and emerging — and so many of our audience members already are Brooklyn residents,” executive director Noreen Tomassi told the Brooklyn Eagle. “The borough may have more readers per square inch than anywhere in the country. Look at all the bookstores that thrive in Brooklyn.”
The BAM North Site II is a 12-story, mixed-use, mixed-income building that will house space for the Mark Morris Dance Group along with other orgainzations. The upper levels will be home to 109 rental units, according to Dattner Architects.
