Simona Blat was working on her laptop inside Black Spring Books, the beloved Williamsburg bookstore she owns and runs by herself, when she heard a terrible sound. Blat, who lives in the apartment above the store, wasn’t the only one who heard it. The building’s superintendent, who had been outside after tending to the front landscaping, heard the sound too. It was water gushing.
Blat and the super ran to the basement. This is her book storeroom. For a moment, she stood, frozen, in shock. A toilet, open, was spraying sewage water like a fountain. Sewage water was filling the basement. Boxes upon boxes of books, many rare, first editions, or from donated collections, were already ruined.
Over the course of an hour, the basement was filled with three feet of sewage water, Blat said. In the following days, after emptying an HVAC over a hundred times, donning hazmat suits and N95 masks, taking out hundreds of trash bags, and receiving an outpouring of support from the community, the basement now sits empty.
A GoFundMe has been started. Yet Blat, a New York City native, said the future of Black Spring Books, cherished among Brooklyn’s literary scene, is still “a little bit uncertain” as she reckons with the catastrophe. It came amid broader challenges, like running a small business — moreover, one that sells books — and rising living costs.
More than a bookstore
The flooding occurred on Saturday, July 18. That day, strong winds and torrential rain hammered the city, causing mass flooding. Experts say climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of this rain. The flooding in Black Spring Books came from the sewage system being overloaded from the relentless water, according to Blat.
Black Spring Books, also a community hub that hosts everything from writing workshops to book launches to singles mixers to music shows, opened in April 2021. This was “always a dream” for Blat, an avid reader, writer and book collector. She was born in Riga, Latvia and her family immigrated to Brooklyn when she was one year old.
“I wasn’t looking to necessarily start a business at the worst time ever,” Blat said, but she had a collection of books, was out of a job, and “serendipitously” found the perfect building, located at 672 Driggs Ave.. It’s a historic landmark located next door to the childhood home of Henry Miller.
The store takes its name from “Black Spring,” the writer’s short story collection.
“It seemed like a really beautiful, wonderful way to honor the rich literary history of Brooklyn,” Blat said.
Black Spring Books has carved its own space in that history. The GoFundMe describes the store as the “warmest bookstore, event space, living room, backyard, and second home for so many.” Blat, similarly, referred to it as a “third space:” a social environment separate from the usual back-and-forth of home and work.
‘A living nightmare’
“F-ck f-ck f-ck f-ck,” Blat recalled saying, as the reality of what was happening hit her. The sewage water continued to pour into the basement. Blat and her super began grabbing ruined books from the cloudy, brown water. Blat said her super was diving into the water, looking for a drain pipe to empty the basement. Blat began crying.
The two found a pump and used it to move the sewage water into the street, into a grate. Books, already drenched in sewage water and ruined, were used to hold the grate open. Blat described it as a “do whatever is possible” situation. Boxes of books, stacked on top of each other, began to crumble and fall once the cardboard got wet.
“It’s like trying to save a sinking ship,” Blat said.
In the following days, once most of the water was pumped out, Blat and her boyfriend, Drew, used an HVAC machine to suck out the remaining water, emptying it over a hundred times. They donned hazmat suits and N95 masks and rubber gloves and began putting soaked, contaminated items into trash bags. Over 100 were filled.
“It was overwhelming, and it took a lot,” Blat said, as they slowly discovered what books had been ruined. In one case, she lost some of the donated personal library of the late editor-in-chief of “Collier’s Encyclopedia.”
“It really breaks my heart,” she said. “I was entrusted with someone’s lifelong collection, and I had lost portions of it.”
One day at a time
After the flood, many in the literary community and beyond offered resources and help.
Blat’s friend, writer Nicole Treska, who launched a book at the store, started a GoFundMe campaign that has raised about $17,000. Blat was also contacted by the office of her local Assembly member, Emily Gallagher, which offered to connect her with legal advice and city and federal emergency assistance programs.
“I mean, I’m gonna cry,” Blat said, grateful.
For now, the bookstore owner said she takes it one day at a time. Her immediate goal is to reopen her doors after the store has remained closed since the flooding. She hopes to continue doing what she loves — and what she believes enriches the community.
But reopening the doors is only part of the challenge facing the bookstore owner.
Blat’s rent was already a challenge before the flood. With her lease up for renewal, she said she is barely making rent and struggled on a daily basis even before the disaster. Sometimes, she feels like she has nothing left to give. Since that Saturday, Blat has found herself asking, “Why do I do this?” She said the flood shook her and made her question the reality of the dream she has worked to build.
Yet amid the uncertainty, Blat said the outpouring of support from the community has reminded her why Black Spring Books matters.
“I still don’t really know quite how to move forward, and I still feel extremely overwhelmed,” Blat said. “But I feel like so many people want this place to continue to exist, and that it’s meaningful to them, and that it’s meaningful to the state of the world right now.”
