QUEENS — Forest Hills residents may soon be able to enjoy reading books in a local park while sipping coffee and chatting with neighbors in a pop-up library.
The Rego Park Green Alliance Studio, a nonprofit promoting community-oriented initiatives, hopes to launch its first "pop and swap" in MacDonald Park, near Queens Boulevard and 70th Avenue, sometime next month.
“We are going to create a very comfortable area, decorated with bright colors, and invite the community to come in and to basically browse books,” said Yvonne Shortt, the group’s executive director. "We will also have some free coffee and cookies."
The group is planning to kick off the initiative with about 50 volumes, including several written by local authors, as well as children’s books, new fiction and art magazines.
In the future, Shortt said, the group is planning to purchase hundreds of additional books, which locals would be able to read whenever the library would make a stop in the neighborhood.
The library would also include a “swap” section, where residents could exchange their books for those left by other people.
Shortt said she hopes the pop-up library will become a space where the community, which lost its Barnes & Noble in 2015, would be able to “sit, read and have conversations.”
“There is no exchange of money, it’s all about bringing the community together,” she said.
Shortt was not sure how often the library would be able to stop by Forest Hills, but noted that down the road, it could potentially also come to other parks located within in the 29th Council District, which also includes Rego Park, Kew Gardens and a portion of Richmond Hill.
The group is currently working on obtaining the necessary permits from the Parks Department.
