Retail vacancy enhancements
The presence of empty street-facing units can undermine vibrancy, walkability, and safety in an area. Empty storefronts can also detract from a sense of community and safety, leading to blight and negatively affecting surrounding businesses. Through installing temporary or permanent window graphics in the form of easy to install window clings, we add vibrancy back to a commercial corridor.
Artists: Andrea Rios, Demeree Douglas, Rachel Antonia Designs, Jessica Stephen-Kauser, Raheem Nelson Location: Crown Street Garage
Description: These windows of the former Alchemy Nightclub space are on a lively, busy downtown street with many bars, restaurants, and music venues. The intention of this art installation was to build off the animation of Downtown through the power of public art, giving artists of New Haven the ability to express their relationship to the city and contribute to our local artist economy. The final artworks are the artists interpretation of what nightlife in New Haven means to them, past, present, or future.
Our pilot vacant storefront activation, Windowed Worlds, was created as a response to the rise of shuttered Downtown businesses during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Brick and mortar businesses that relied on foot traffic to drive sales were particularly harmed as commercial corridors across the city saw major reductions in economic activity. Windowed Worlds employed local artists to create site-specific art installations inside these vacant storefronts, activating ground floor spaces with public art and camouflaging the vacancies.
With a surge of new businesses Downtown in the subsequent years, we have chosen to shutter the original Windowed Worlds program to keep up with the turnover and growth of new business in the district. We now focus on exterior activations such as vinyl installations above, which are easier to install and deinstall as new businesses rapidly move in.
IN THE MEDIA
New Haven Arts Paper: “Black Kid Joy” Appears at City Hall | April 18, 2020 New Haven Arts Paper: “Windowed Worlds” Press on Through A Pandemic | April 16, 2020 WNPR: The State of Main Street Retail | September 27, 2019 Hartford Business Journal: Vacant downtown storefront windows transformed into art objects | September 3, 2019 New Haven Independent: Window Art transorms Vacant Storefronts | August 23, 2019
