If you do your laundry at the Mermaid Laundromat, located on Knickerbocker between Starr and Troutman streets, you might be in for a surprise should you decide to duck under the silver streamers that hang over the door to a kiosk tucked into a corner. Feminist zines, condoms, lube and t-shirts fill the tiny space – appropriately named The Troll Hole – in the corner of the spacious neighborhood laundromat. After months of collaborative planning between proprietors Hayley Blatte, Justin Shock and Monica Yi, Troll Hole celebrated its grand opening with a party last Wednesday night.
The juxtaposition between regular Bushwick residents doing their laundry, emptying out their machine and adding their detergent and drinking, zine-reading, sex toy-talking attendees added to the surrealness of the tiny space. Sex shop? Zine shop? Community center? The deepest depths of Alice’s rabbit hole? It’s hard to pin-down exactly what Troll Hole is, but that’s not necessarily a coincidence. “We wanted something accessible and fun,” described co-owner Monica Yi. “Sex shops are serious and sterile.”
Accessibility and openness is key for the 3 owners, who emphasize how much they value supporting, and being involved with, their community. “We want to use our class privilege, that’s what gets lost in these kinds of businesses” said Yi, aware of the need for businesses to work with and for the community it resides in.
