Even with its 1.4 million people the Bronx has only one general bookstore: Barnes & Noble in Bay Plaza by Co-op City. (I’d love to be wrong about this, so please let me know if I am.)
That said, we can all regularly share and exchange books we’ve read — but don’t need around the house anymore — in an outdoor book cabinet. Think that’s a good idea? Well it is, but it ain’t mine.
Down our Bronx block on Giles Place in Kingsbridge Heights (also known as Van Cortlandt Village) our friends and neighbors, Sarah and Brian Aucoin, installed a Little Free Library in their front yard last year. They painted it beautiful colors with their two sons, Artie and Ozzie. It’s simply a house-shaped wooden cabinet and a glass door on a pole.
A ‘Little Free Library’ on Giles Place in the Kingsbridge Heights neighborhood of the Bronx. Photo by Jordan Moss
Little Free Library is actually a nonprofit that provides these all over the world. But for now, the Aucoins’ library appears to be the only one in the Bronx.
The book cabinet allows anybody who walks by to see what’s available, take what they would like to read, and/or share what they’ve already read. It’s clearly been a big success. The shelf is regularly full and from week-to-week the titles continue to change.
Oh, it appears that the Aucoins’ Little Free Library launch is beginning to spread. Another wooden post similar to the one at the Aucoins’ house is going up next door. But that post is a bit shorter so it looks like the library is going to be for the little (or soon-to-be) readers in our area! How cool is that?
Stay tuned!
Bronx Matters 
I don’t have a “little library” since I live in an apartment. But I do “abandon” my books from time to time.
I take a book, add a sticky note saying something like “this book is free. I hope you like it. When you’re finished, please pass it on”
I leave it in a place with foot traffic, but where I can circle back later to take it home if it’s not claimed (that’s only happened once out of the 30 or so times I’ve done this)