ARTISTIC COMMUNITY TO FUEL LUCY’S COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS

Rogers and her namesake foundation who are footing the bill for this “creative community space.”

“I don’t know that the arts community here will ever be what it is in New York,” Rogers said, “but my goal, since I moved here when I was 12 years old, has been to raise the cultural barometer of this town — so that when I travel someplace, I don’t have to be ashamed.”

We chuckle at that one: It’s funny because it’s true. But the Lucy is no joke. Rogers, with the help of Writer’s Block proprietors Scott Seeley and Drew Cohen, BMI director and Believer editor Joshua Wolf Shenk and others, is not trying to a make a sealed commune but an artistic engine that will be fueled by its community.

Perhaps as soon as early December, you’ll be able to visit a Writer’s Block that offers coffee and pastries and stocks nearly four times the number of books it does now while retaining its charming “bird sanctuary” theme. Here, you’ll meet artists and authors who are living, working and collaborating on-property, and join them for art and literary events in a dedicated indoor events space or out in the parking area, which is handsome twotoned concrete and ready-wired for sound and video.

Shenk, a member of the Lucy’s creative team, seems amazed that Lucy is real.

“So much of BMI’S work is based on stimulating community and connection,” he said. “This is a grand new adventure in our relationship with the Rogers Foundation and the Writer’s Block.” And it’s a new adventure for Vegas, too, which has crossed many a Poets Bridge to get here.