Daily What?! Buy A Rock From Brooklyn (And Support The Arts?)

Spotted last week at Brokelyn, Brooklynite Floyd Hayes is selling “Pieces of Brooklyn” on his Etsy page. If you can’t afford a brownstone in Brooklyn then this might just be for you: Hayes is selling regular stones he harvests from the ground in Brooklyn. Says the description, “The Piece of Brooklyn Project allows anyone to own their very own piece of the coolest neighborhood in the world for just $4.” He has already sold 31 rocks encased in plastic with his unique stamp of authenticity, and $1 of each sale goes to the Brooklyn Arts Council. We spoke with the Brooklyn-based entrepreneur about his quirky project.

Photo by Floyd Hayes

Floyd Hayes is a London-born entrepreneur transplanted into the Brooklyn creative scene. He told me, “I’m English by birth and still have many friends in England.  They are always telling me they read about how creative and interesting Brooklyn is and how lucky I am to live here. It’s artists, food, bars, music and style influences the world.  The place has international respect amongst the “creative class” at least.”

Hayes got into the craft of selling rocks by his interest in what he calls “compassionate capitalism”–“ways to make money for myself and good causes.” He also says, “with the whole locally curated/sourced/crafted products constantly coming out, I thought this would be a funny take on that whole scene.  Not as funny as the bloke who sharpens pencils, but it has raised a few smiles.”

His post on tumblr this week tells about “shipping” his first few rocks–which happen to be ordered by people in Brooklyn. It gets even wackier. We asked Floyd what the weirdest moment has been in his experience selling rocks: “Someone emailed and asked if [the rocks] had dog pee on them or if I washed them. I told them I’d charge extra for pee.”

Floyd’s project is fueled by the power of Brooklyn as its own brand, “Brooklyn is world-renowned for it’s creativity. Living here has been an amazing source of inspiration for me and I wanted to put something back into the community. Each piece is totally unique and would make the perfect fun gift or keepsake.” He considers Brooklyn to be the “coolest” borough. He didn’t express interest in selling pieces of any other borough, but did say, “I am planning on a few other cities and areas – East London could stand toe-to-toe in a hipster fight with Williamsburg no problem. Berlin, Tokyo, São Paulo. I had an email from a guy in Paris wanting to do this.  We’ll see how this goes and take it from there.”

Own a Piece of Brooklyn by ordering from Floyd Hayes’ Etsy page.

If this wasn’t weird enough, you can also buy a can of air from New York City, Paris, London and other cities. Have a quirky find you want us to publish in the Daily What?!? Contact us or submit via Twitter with the hashtag #DailyWhat.