BROCKPORT, N.Y. – On Oct. 1, Lift Bridge Book Shop sent out a call for help: “We need support. We need people in our store or ordering online or calling….whatever you can do! Please spread the word and help us get through this extremely difficult time.”
Largely due to the closure of the Main Street bridge, the Brockport staple since 1972 was in danger of shutting its doors for good.
“I can’t even tell you how bad it was,” co-owner John Bonczyk said. “We weren’t getting books shipped to us — we needed to get out from underneath paying the publishers so we could get books shipped in.”
On Oct. 8, Christina Daniels, a neighbor of the shop, created a GoFundMe titled Save Lift Bridge Book Shop. “Friends, neighbors, book lovers — our beloved Lift Bridge Book Shop is at risk of closing its doors. For decades, this shop has been more than a bookstore. It’s been the heartbeat of Main Street — a place where kids discover their first stories, where college students find inspiration, where locals pop in just to say hi, and where generations of Brockport families have built memories surrounded by the smell of paper and possibility.”
“We honestly had no idea that she set it up,” Bonczyk said. “Sarah [Bonczyk (the other co-owner of Lift Bridge Book Shop)] was at a New York Forward grant meeting. We had to pull out of that because Sarah went up there and said ‘we don’t have the funds to do this — to get the match. We might not even be here by the time this starts to come to fruition.’ Christina was at that meeting. Christina walked home and was extremely upset, and when she got home she said ‘what can I do?’ Unbeknownst to us, she set up a GoFundMe. She’s that type of person who’s like ‘I need to do something,’ and she’ll do it.”
Six days later, after raising well over $10,000, Daniels posted an update: “The outpouring of support from this community has been nothing short of amazing. Every donation, every share, every kind word — it all matters more than you know. Because of your generosity, Lift Bridge Book Shop not only gets a fighting chance to stay open — they’re already talking about how to pay it forward. They plan to help lift up other small merchants who’ve struggled through the bridge closure and remind us all that Main Street thrives when we support one another.”
As of Nov. 4, the GoFundMe has raised over $30,000 from over 400 donations, with more coming in every day.
“At first we saw it and we were floored,” Bonczyk said. “But we just kind of put it out of our minds because we were so busy — I didn’t have time to check it. At the end of the day I would be like ‘oh yeah I forgot that was going’ and you get home, sit on the coach finally and be like ‘okay I’ll check it.’ Every single time — just floored at what it had grown to. It’s humbling to see how much people care — the messages we’ve gotten and people coming in saying how much this place means to them.”
Bonczyk, while appreciative of the support, also remains cautiously optimistic about the future of the Book Shop.
“People after the holidays could go back to the way that it had been in here and we could be in the same boat in a year,” he said. “The same things that people are feeling at home — the rising costs and everything — it happens here. And here it’s even more, because this is a big space. It costs a lot of money to run this store. It’s a blessing and a curse. We have tons of space in here but you need to have that space filled, otherwise it looks empty. The cost of everything goes up. I don’t want to downplay the amount of money that is in there, but that’s a small chunk of change compared to what it costs to keep this place up and running.”
Online stores like Amazon have decimated the brick and mortar bookstore industry. In the late 90s, when Amazon first started, there were about 12,000 brick and mortar bookstores in the United States and around 60% of book sales came from those bookstores. Fast forward to today, there are fewer than 6,000 brick and mortar bookstores and it’s estimated that Amazon accounts for 50% to 80% of all book sales.
“That’s [Amazon] a swear word in here,” Bonczyk said. “Even for us, we have to get books from Amazon because they are a publisher. So there are authors’ books that we have to get from Amazon because we can’t get them any place else. They are all-encompassing and it’s really easy [to get books from them].”
Bonczyk, however, is confident that the Lift Bridge Book Shop can fight against Amazon by providing things that they can’t replicate.
“We’re human,” he said. “People come in here looking for connection. You can buy just about anything in here cheaper. We also pay taxes in this community. Amazon hasn’t even paid taxes yet — they are a multi-billion dollar organization and they don’t pay taxes. They’re not here in your community, they’re not gonna give you a gift certificate for whatever fundraiser. We don’t say no to anybody that comes in this store who’s asking for a donation. Maybe it’s not cash, because I don’t have a ton of it, hence the GoFundMe, but we will definitely give a gift certificate or something that we can do to help whatever it is that’s in your organization. Our customers are our friends. They come in and we talk. This is a community. We’re not just here selling books and toys and games. This is a place to escape the outside world, at least for a little while. Going to Wegmans or Walmart, what kind of experience do you get in there? You forget that because of how wonderful it is to be in this place.”
While the future remains uncertain for Lift Bridge Book Shop, John and Sarah Bonczyk can rest a little easier knowing the Brockport community isn’t ready to let their story end.
