Upper West Siders Fill Former Bank Street Bookstore Windows With Art

The former storefront windows of Bank Street Bookstore will boast 24 works of art ranging from photographs to paintings and collages starting this Saturday through the beginning of September, thanks to the efforts of a small group of Upper West Siders who live in a co-op building that includes the 2780 Broadway retail space. Passersby on the street will be able to view the art on display, which was curated from over 250 submissions from nearly 100 local artists, according to a press release, and shop via QR codes.

The idea for an exhibition was born at the end of last year, when residents started Art on the Corner as an offshoot of their building’s communication committee, according to team member Esther Crow. The residents looked to Art on the Ave NYC — a group that similarly transforms vacant storefronts into galleries — for guidance to launch their own window display. “We really wanted work that reflected the neighborhood,” Crow said. She referenced pieces featuring water towers and depicting a socially-distant queue outside of a UPS store, among other design elements featured in the selected artworks, as representative of the “flavor” of the Upper West Side and of the past year.

Art on the Corner is not the first group to transform the former home of Bank Street Bookstore with a temporary window display—New Vessel Press, a local independent publishing house, showcased 50 books in translation during a month-long pop-up earlier this spring. If the space remains vacant come the end of the summer, Crow explained, Art on the Corner may tackle yet another exhibit.