Bedford-Stuyvesant

Bed-Stuy radical coffee shop founds educational nonprofit

July 18, 2018 By Raanan Geberer Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Playground Coffee Shop. Image © 2018 Google Maps photo
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When her father’s hardware store at Bedford Avenue and Quincy Street in Bed-Stuy went out of business early last year, Zenat Begum, a recent graduate of the New School, created Playground Coffee Shop in the space.

Begum, a Bengali-American, conceived of Playground as a radical coffee shop geared toward people of color, especially artists, with a bookstore, events and eventually an educational nonprofit, according to Grub Street.

On July 7, the store supported the launch of that nonprofit, dubbed Playground Youth, with a weekend-long art fair. “Youth is about anyone who wants to join and help contribute to our neighborhood,” Begum told Grub Street. Still, she said, “We’re kids running our own s—t, not 40-year-old people curating galleries.” Events are funded by coffee and bookstore sales.

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