Vibe Garden at Fitz: A 21st-Century US Salon in Buffalo, NY
Fitz Books and Waffles is located on 431 Ellicott Street in Buffalo, NY. (Photo: Steve Peraza/Weave News)
On Sunday, August 5, 2024, Fitz Books and Waffles in Buffalo hosted the Vintage and Vinyl Pop Up, where community members enjoyed free music from local DJs and connected with a wide range of vendors selling vintage clothing and vinyl records.
Organized by Vibe Garden, an arts community organization that hosts hip hop parties with live entertainers, including DJs, emcees, beatboxers, singers, dancers, and graffiti artists, the Vintage and Vinyl Pop Up aimed to raise funds for future dance parties, including A Hip Hop Community Party at Fitz Books and Waffles on Sunday, August 18, where three DJs will spin records, four singers will set the vibe, and graffiti artists will display their works.
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Vibe Garden recruited several partners for the pop-up. Soul Stop Records, a Town of Tonawanda movie and music store, marketed high quality vinyl records, heavily influenced by Golden Era Hip Hop artists (1988-1993).
Customers enjoyed the vibe of music and vintage goods. (Photos: Steve Peraza/Weave News)
The clothing vendors were diverse, all providing vintage wears for Fitz customers. Backroom Vintage, based in Downtown Buffalo, buys and sells clothing from the period between 1960 and 2000. Flip It and Reverse It Apparel, a second vendor, is a woman owned and operated vintage clothing seller which curates its collection by hand and offers styling suggestions for customers “to create their own unique and personal style.” A third vendor, Unique Boutique 716,is anchored on the East Side of Buffalo and offers uniquely styled clothing, bags, coats, and shoes
Unique clothing and accessories filled the racks and hooks at Fitz during the Vintage and Vinyl Pop-Up. (Photos: Steve Peraza/Weave News)
A local author and organizer, James Coughlin, described Fitz Books and Waffles, the host of the Vintage and Vinyl Pop Up, as a 21st-century “salon.” In early modern France, salons gathered select groups of people for social, cultural, and ideological exchanges. Some sources have identified 18th-century French salons with political radicalism, labeling them “the cradle of the French Revolution.”
“Fitz,” as Buffalonians refer to it, represents the downtown node of a network of revolutionary bookstores which span the city of Buffalo (Burning Books on the West Side, Zawadi Books on the East Side, and Rust Belt Books in Black Rock, among others). In a statement on its website, Fitz makes no qualms about the revolutionary spirit of the store: “We believe that a reading revolution is key to countering American fascism and white supremacy. We hope that our inviting bookstore lays bare the connections between literature, art, insight and liberation.”
Fitz Books and Waffles sells used and new books, with a diverse range of genres, and extensive collection of local authors. (Photo: Steve Peraza/Weave News)
In addition to the music, clothes, accessories, and books waiting to catch the eye, the visual art in Fitz and the adjoining gallery, both playful and penetrating, completed the “vibe” of the Vintage and Vinyl Pop Up. On display at Fitz is “On Our Backs: The Revolutionary Art of Queer Sex Work,” an exhibit that aims “to center the twentieth-century phenomenon of sex-work activism and advocacy-movements from which LGBTQ history is inextricable.”
”On Our Backs” was on exhibit during the Vintage and Vinyl Pop-Up. (Photo: Steve Peraza/Weave News)
If you or someone you know is in Buffalo on August 18 and would like to experience a hip hop dance party at a 21st-century US salon, visit Eventbrite for tickets to the next Vibe Garden hip hop party, scheduled for 4:00-8:00 p.m. at Fitz Books and Waffles.
