On the corner of Macon Street and Marcus Garvey Boulevard, a beloved Bedford-Stuyvesant hardware store is getting a second life.

The former Macon Hardware, owned for nearly 50 years by Black proprietor Clara Hayes , is being transformed into North Star Books + Bar , a Black-owned bookstore, bar and cafe from Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and The 1619 Project author Nikole Hannah-Jones.

The North Star partnership includes longtime neighborhood business operator Rotimi Akinnuoye, of Bed-Vyne Wine and Bed-Vyne Brew fame, and DJ Johnson of Baldwin & Co ., a bookstore and coffee shop in New Orleans.

Hannah-Jones said she has been dreaming about opening a Black-owned bookstore in Bed-Stuy for a decade.

“When I first moved to Bed-Stuy, there was no bookstore. And there was no Bl

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