For Inwood and Washington Heights residents only. When borrowing an item, you must coordinate with the owner or current holder of item to pick up.
Please treat items with care and respect. When you borrow an item, you take responsibility for using it safely.
If something breaks or a part is lost, tell us and the owner of the item right away.
Do not travel with the item unless approved by owner.
You are allowed to keep the item for a specific amount of time (will be emailed to you) in order to allow other borrowers to use it as well. If there is no one waiting for an item, you can keep it for as long as you want unless the owner wants it back.
We are a FREE library - there are no late fees or replacement fees. However, you may be banned from borrowing if you ignore communication, do not return items, or use items improperly.
You can borrow more than 1 item at a time!
I am a local mom of two in Inwood, Manhattan who has benefited greatly from borrowing toys and tools from my neighbors, community, and the Inwood library! I created the Uptown Lending Library as a way of extending this benefit to a bigger network and with more things. Borrowing and sharing in communities is a crucial way of saving space, reducing waste, and connecting with each other!
If you want to borrow something, please read the rules above and then click on "request" on the item you are interested in. You will receive an email with instructions on how to coordinate to pick it up and how long you can expect to borrow it for.
The Lending Library depends on people sharing their things so please look around and see what you can share also!
Please visit this page to find out more!
Currently we are only virtual and items are housed with owners and borrowers.
But it would be incredible to have a storage space that we can open up to the community or to have donated items we can share and store. Let us know if you have any leads!
We hope to eventually expand to other items that people only need rarely - like tools, camping gear, or cleaning items, but for now, we are starting with just toys!
There are several ways to help:
Help manage the library - for example, if you are interested in tool sharing, perhaps take over the coordinating of tools when we get that section open!
Share your items - email us with items you would like to open up to the community to borrow
Share a storage space - if you have a place the lending library can store things, let us know!
Share your website expertise - if you have knowledge of how to make the coordinating automated so that we don't have to do it manually
Share your ideas - if you have ideas on how to make the Uptown Lending Library better
Financial help - at the moment, we need far more gifts of time than money, but if you would like to donate, we welcome it