Jersey City man runs free bookstore six days a week

Hinaa Noor/The Jersey Journal By Hinaa Noor/The Jersey Journal The Jersey Journal
on March 05, 2013 at 7:20 AM
Jersey City Free Books on Feb. 21, 2013 Owner Anthony Olszewki browses the stacks at Jersey City Free Books. JCFB is a community book exchange located at 297 Griffith St. in The Heights in Jersey City. Books are free to give and take.  
For four years running, the Jersey City Free Books store on Griffith Street in the Heights has been Anthony Olszewski’s labor of love.

More than 500 books fiction, history, do-it-yourself manuals, you name it are crammed into his storefront rental. And it’s all free to anyone yearning to learn something new.

“One of the greatest things I have experienced here is that people would come in search for one of their favorite (books) and they would end up taking five or more (books) at the end,” said Olszewski, who earns a living fixing computers. “It’s a great source . . . people are able to receive affordable reading and it takes no effort at all.”

Well, people do have to make the trek to the store, located just off Kennedy Boulevard. Customers are invited to leave books, or browse through the collection and take some.

The bookstore receives donated books in several languages, and it receives old texts as well.

“I remember a young lady came to my store with a very unique paperback in Polish. I believe the book was from the 1950s,” Olszewski said.

When a fire shut down a bookstore in 2008 that ran a free book exchange program, Olszewski said he decided to open up his own store.

“I saw this book called ‘Prehistoric European Art,’ a very good read. I believe it had a $35 price tag it was on top of a pile of garbage,” Olszewski recalled. “A passer-by comes by and asks, ‘Why are you digging garbage, shame on you.’ I replied that whoever threw the book out should be ashamed of themselves.”


The Jersey City Free Books store, 297 Griffith St., is open from Mondays to Wednesdays noon to 5 p.m., Thursdays and Fridays noon until 8 p.m., and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For information, call (201) 798-2292.
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