BTL Staff
PHILIDELPHIA – The nation's oldest gay bookstore will reopen next month in Philly after closing in May due to financial problems.
Philly AIDS Thrift says it is taking over the shop previously called Giovanni's Room after it closed after 41 years of serving the Philly LGBT community.
Philly AIDS Thrift operates a secondhand store whose proceeds benefit local HIV/AIDS organizations. The group has obtained a two-year lease to operate Giovanni's Room.
Order of the long-time bookstore is soon to change adding in housewares and vintage clothing to the already extensive inventory of books. Giovanni's Room has served as a resource, safe haven and gathering place for the city's community and is named after the 1956 James Baldwin novel about a young man in postwar Paris struggling with his sexual identity.