Despite a Thanksgiving Day flood, Harriett’s Bookshop owner Jeannine Cook finds room for gratitude

On the Monday after Black Friday weekend — the retail industry’s biggest spending days — Harriett’s Bookshop owner Jeannine A. Cook surveyed the damage wrought by last week’s unexpected floodwaters in the basement of her Fishtown store.

Several boxes of decades-old Ebony, Jet, and the Crisis magazines, as well as her entire inventory of used books, were ruined. Cook threw away boxes of branded T-shirts. Floors were pulled up and neon lights that once illuminated Harriett’s downstairs sanctuary had to be discarded.

She burned dozens of incense sticks for three days, yet the stench of mildew and sewage lingered.

Still, Cook, Philly’s most popular bookstore owner who turned book-selling into not only an art form but an act of resistance, is grateful.

“I just wanted to say thank you to all who came out,” Cook said on the phone as she walked the narrow stairs down to her basement. “The unlikeliest people came together and helped us with such simple acts of help. They seem small but had a major impact on the community.”

With the help of friends, neighbors, and strangers, Cook opened Harriett’s on Black Friday and Small Business Saturday, dehumidifiers humming in the background. Shoppers meandered in and out of the shop on Cyber Monday.

Cook was relaxing on Thanksgiving morning when she received a call from neighbors: Sewage was backing up on East Girard Avenue in front of her store. There had been plumbing issues in the building in previous weeks. But nothing like this.

When she arrived, water in the basement was ankle-high, prompting Cook to post on Instagram: “Harrietts is flooded.”

“People immediately came out to help,” Cook said. “They helped to remove the trash, they cleaned up, they helped us with the smell, and they helped us get the water out. Whatever they could do to be helpful, they did.”

Cook and her team were still cleaning on Black Friday morning. Despite the chilly air, Cook set up an outdoor display and rang customers up inside — with the front and back doors open. By Saturday, she’d salvaged a little more. On Monday, things were almost back to normal.

The basement, she said, is ruined. But Cook is relieved that she kept the books she planned to put on display on the main floor, instead of the basement where she usually stored them.

“I don’t know when, or if, I’ll ever be able to open it again,” Cook said.

In between holiday sales, Cook, who opened Harriett’s in February 2020, spoke with insurance companies, figuring out whether she will be able to get her floor replaced and recoup the cost of the waterlogged books. (She donates the sales of her used books to various charities, so that giving will be on hold for the time being.)

The goal, Cook said, is to get the basement as close to ready as she can by Dec. 16. That’s when she will hold a “Joyathon,” a 24-hour children’s book drive Harriett’s is hosting with singer Denise King and with the founder of the virtual Museum of Black Joy, Andrea Walls. The books, Cook said, will be donated to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

“It’s pretty special when you can be somewhere where you weren’t born and raised, and people still come out for you,” Cook said. “Things always have a way of working out in perfect order. And for that, I’m grateful.”