ABOUT US

The Filling Station is currently an online and pop-in bookstore founded by mother-daughter duo Dee and Destinee Swindell in 2020. We are excited to share our love for reading with you and bring a Black-owned bookstore to Central Harlem.

Our inventory is extensive and we both dabble across genres as readers, but below are our personal interests! You can expect to see them highlighted in our content.

Dee: Romance, Mystery, 19th Century Historical Fiction

Destinee: Black Fantasy/Sci-Fi, 19th-20th Century Historical Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Social Non-Fiction (Race, Culture, Class, Feminism)

How did we choose the name?

In 1954, our family matriarch left her hometown of Anniston, AL and took her talents to New Bern, NC. She raised her three children in James City, at the time a Black enclave. Dee, the baby of the family and a book lover, still relishes in memories of playing in the shade provided by a pecan orchard - it was her happy place. And when peering out from it, a gas station sat to the left. But our folks are country, so sometimes they call it a ‘filling station’.