This story originally published online at The 9th Street Journal.
When you walk by the old Weeks Motor Company showroom on West Geer Street at the end of Rigsbee Avenue, the first thing you notice is this: It has phenomenal windows. There are 28 of them, stacked side by side and wrapping neatly around the curved corners of the building. As you walk up Geer Street, the windows are what draw you in. Light floods out of them onto the street. The facade sparkles.
This building has an eclectic history: It began as a showroom for the Weeks Motor Company, used to display the latest Lincoln and Mercury sedans, before being converted into an auto supply shop. After 42 years, the shop closed, and the building sat empty, filled with old furniture and dust, until it was reimaged as a storefront for a coffee shop that was really a church. But when neighbors discovered the church was anti-LGBTQ, the neighborhood erupted, and the building was soon empty again…