New York City (April 1, 2026) – The Bureau of General Services—Queer Division, the only queer bookstore in Manhattan, announced it will close at the end of April unless a new owner takes the reins. Hive Mind Books, Brooklyn’s popular queer independent bookstore and coffee shop, is making a bid to purchase the Bureau and keep it open for its loyal community in its longtime location at The LGBT Community Center in the West Village. As part of the project, Hive Mind Books will also reopen the cafe on the first floor of the Center. The Brooklyn bookstore has launched a fundraiser for the $50,000 needed for the transition.
“It’s vital that we preserve this space of queer community and culture in New York City,” says Jules Wernersbach, founder of Hive Mind Books. “We’re in a moment when queer literature is under extreme censorship nationwide and trans people are being targeted by legislation that threatens their human rights. Just this month, HR 7661, a bill that would censor books in schools nationwide, was sent to the House. We must keep this invaluable resource of trans and queer literature open in our city. We need it.”
Donnie Jochum and Greg Newton co-founded the Bureau in 2012 in response to another critical moment when Manhattan was without a bookstore specifically dedicated to queer people and queer culture. Starting as a pop-up shop, the Bureau found a stable home in 2014 when Manhattan’s LGBT Community Center invited the Bureau to set up shop on the building’s second floor. More than 700,000 queer people call New York home, the largest population of LGBTQIA+ adults in the nation.
From the outset, the Bureau has served as a critical component of New York City’s queer cultural infrastructure. As an all-volunteer, independent queer bookstore and cultural center, the Bureau has hosted thousands of events, exhibitions, and workshops featuring countless queer authors, poets, scholars, artists, activists, performers, and other members of the global queer community, including Sarah Schulman, Kate Bornstein, Rumi Missabu, Edmund White, Jacqueline Woodson, Michelle Tea, John Keene, Emanuel Xavier, Christopher Bram, Pamela Sneed, Eileen Myles, Torrey Peters, Judy Grahn, and so many others. The Bureau continues to be a much-needed queer community hub and an important space for gathering outside of bars and nightclubs.
“As we prepare for a new chapter in our lives,” Greg and Donnie write, “we are thrilled that Hive Mind Books will not only keep the Bureau open, but also build on the Bureau’s rich history by linking it to the café in The Center’s lobby as well as to its bookstore community in Bushwick. Given that our missions align perfectly, this really is a dream come true for us. We want to ensure that Jules, the Hive Mind Books team, and the Bureau’s team are set up for success. We hope that everyone who values what the Bureau has done over the past 13+ years will chip in to enable the Bureau to continue serving local and visiting queers for years to come!”
Hive Mind Books, which opened its storefront at 219 Irving Avenue in Bushwick in 2024, has found tremendous success engaging Brooklyn’s queer and trans community with a busy events calendar, community-first approach, and friendly coffee shop atmosphere. Hive Mind Books has become a beloved center for readers, organizers, authors, and neighbors and looks forward to merging the two bookstores’ communities.
Hive Mind Books was founded by Jules Wernersbach, who has more than twenty years of experience as a bookseller and event organizer in New York, Texas, and on Long Island. Wernersbach is also an author. Their debut novel, Work To Do, about the dynamics of working for a small business, will be published April 7 by University of Iowa Press.
The Bureau is located inside of the historic LGBT Center in the West Village, which provides a safe and affirming place for LGBTQ+ New Yorkers to respond to the urgent threats facing the community. For more than forty years, the Center has been a cornerstone of the LGBTQ+ community, serving as an incubator for queer coalitions, movements, and organizations, including ACT UP, The Lesbian Avengers, Callen-Lorde, and the Anti-Violence Project. As part of the acquisition, Hive Mind Books is partnering with The Center to preserve the bookstore while also reopening the cafe space on the first floor of the LGBT Center.
“At The Center, we see supporting the bookstore as an essential part of our mission. At a time when LGBTQ+ voices are being silenced and threatened across the country, spaces where our community connects, learns, and shares our stories are more important than ever, ” says Jeffrey Klein, COO at The Center.
The fundraiser, hosted on GoFundMe, is raising money to make an initial payment for the business, expand staff across both bookstores, launch an e-commerce website for the Bureau, and purchase cafe equipment and services.
For details, follow @hivemindbookstore and @bgsqd on Instagram and visit: www.hivemindbooks.com and www.bgsqd.com.
To make a donation, visit https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-manhattans-last-queer-bookstore
