“Shoulder to shoulder...”

October 30, 2018 12:42 PM

How Do You Move A Bookstore? With A Human Chain, Book By Book [NPR|Books] “When October Books, a small radical bookshop in Southampton, England, was moving to a new location down the street, it faced a problem. How could it move its entire stock to the new spot, without spending a lot of money or closing down for long? The shop came up with a clever solution: They put out a call for volunteers to act as a human conveyor belt.”
posted by Fizz (8 comments total)

this is extremely good and i like it
posted by poffin boffin at 12:47 PM on October 30, 2018 [6 favorites]

Just beautiful. I started getting a little misty-eyed.


“We had elderly people, children, and everybody in between...It was really sort of surprising and positive, and just a really moving experience to see people chipping in because they wanted to help. And they wanted to be part of something bigger.”


Just beautiful.
posted by darkstar at 12:52 PM on October 30, 2018 [3 favorites]

When I was a young lad, the town library moved from a 100 year old Victorian library to a shiny new modern library about 100 yards away.
Volunteers did the same thing with the collection.

Soon after, we moved out of that town, so I have no distinct memory of being in either the new or old library, but I have a very clear memory of the book relay.
posted by madajb at 1:28 PM on October 30, 2018 [8 favorites]

I was in Mexico City during the two big earthquakes that happened down there a year ago, and one of the most beautiful things I have ever experienced was that, amid all the suffering and confusing, the entire city became just a collection of human chains, moving rubble and passing out sandwiches. Teenagers didn't go to school - they helped direct traffic in busy intersections. Thousands of people that stopped going about their daily lives and just helped out.
posted by lilies.lilies at 1:50 PM on October 30, 2018 [16 favorites]

It suddenly got dusty in here.
posted by OrangeDisk at 3:11 PM on October 30, 2018

The Pantry cafe in LA once did a similar thing. Their old place was condemned through eminent domain to build the Harbor Freeway. The got a new place a few blocks away (their current location). They're known for being a 24-hours, never closes kind of place. How to move without closing?

At the designated time, the diners in the old place picked up their plates and marched down the street in a micro parade to the new place, prepared to be waiting for them.

Open since 1924. Even when they had to move.
posted by aurelian at 3:28 PM on October 30, 2018 [21 favorites]

October Books moved in October. :)
posted by MexicanYenta at 5:36 PM on October 30, 2018 [5 favorites]

In DC, Politics and Prose moved across a busy road in 1989 the same way.
posted by OmieWise at 5:46 AM on October 31, 2018 [1 favorite]