Center Of Fiction To Open Brooklyn Location Next Year

FORT GREENE, NY — The nonprofit Center for Fiction, which has been based in Manhattan for nearly two decades, plans to move to their new Brooklyn home next year, the group said.

Construction started on the center's new 15 Lafayette Ave. headquarters last month and the group's expected to open the doors of the spot in January.

"We couldn’t have hoped for a better location and we are thrilled to become part of that energy," Noreen Tomassi, executive director of the Center for Fiction, said in a statement. "Brooklyn is home to so many wonderful writers and devoted readers and we are very much looking forward to serving them and all New Yorkers in this beautiful new building."

The new 17,500-square-foot building, across the street from BAM, has three-floors and was designed by BKSK Architects. It will have a 160-seat auditorium for public events, a street-level bookstore, a cafe and bar, a larger library space and classrooms with four times the amount of space.

The new headquarters will also have quiet reading rooms and garden terraces and a "Writer's Studio" with floor to ceiling windows, according to the group.

The Center sold its historic home at 17 E. 47th St., which served as its headquarters since 1932, for $18 million in 2015 so it could relocate to Brooklyn, DNAinfo reported. The group has remained in its Manhattan digs while it waited for their new space to finish.

It was founded as the Mercantile Library in 1820 in Lower Manhattan then changed its name to the Center for Fiction in 2008, the group said.

Image: BKSK Architects