Bluestockings Bookstore and Cafe In 2003 Brooke Lehman, Hitomi Matarese, and I formed the Bluestockings Collective to transform the Bluestockings Bookstore on the lower east side of Manhattan from a lesbian bookstore to a broad based radical political bookstore, activist center, and fair trade cafe. With excellent community support, we gut renovated the entire store, restocked the shelves, built a cafe, and organized a wide variety of events. Five years later, Bluestockings has expanded once again, reached the 5000 title mark, and continues to be a vital community space and educational center. I've included recent pictures of the store and coffee tables I designed and built to fit the space. Bluestockings Mission Statement Bluestockings is a radical bookstore, fair trade cafe, and activist center in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Through words, art, food,activism, education, and community, we strive to create a space that welcomes and empowers all people. We actively support movements that challenge hierarchy and all systems of oppression, including but not limited to patriarchy, heterosexism, the gender binary, white supremacy and classism, within society as well as our own movements. We seek to make our space and resources available to such movements for meetings, events, and research. Additionally, we offer educational programming that promotes centered, strategic, and visionary thinking, towards the realization of a society that is infinitely creative, truly democratic, equitable, ecological, and free.