Wearing an eye-opening blue cocktail dress that he picked up from the Salvation Army (eight dollars) and Brooks Brothers ankle-high boots (a $200 value) that he found at his own establishment, Free Store co-founder Hans Shoenburg led a fashion parade down Church and over to Crown Street. The kick-off event of Project Storefronts summer-long series of open houses brought crowds and smiles to the Ninth Square.
The Friday night open houses downtown are designed to bring customers in and enhance the pedestrian and business atmosphere.
A city program, Project Storefronts negotiates with landlords to give three-month free leases to entrepreneurial artists or artistic entrepreneurs to give them a shot at retail success and, for the landlord, to make long vacant spaces more attractive either to the artists or to visiting potential renters.
In 2010, the project’s debut year, one out of four businesses, The Grove, graduated from a three-month free lease to become a paying customer, at 71 Orange St.
The project recently won a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts in recognition of the way it has spurred the creative and overall economy downtown.
Click here for an article on the advent of the Free Store at 55 Church and here for one about the arrival of the City Bench store in the vacant lobby of 100 Crown Street, the two latest Project Storefront efforts.
Murphy (l) and Bodell.
As she watched Shoenburg strut his stuff on the runway, Project Storefront’s creator Margaret Bodell said, “It’s Friday night. We got to get away from the computers. The overall goal [of Project Storefronts] is to activate vacant retail spaces and start new businesses.”
City Economic Development Department Director Kelly Murphy gave Bodell a high five and said, “Margaret is two for two.”
In addition to the Grove, the second success story is the Free Store space at 55 Church; it will soon be vacated by Shoenburg, and the others founders and volunteers, because a paying tenant has been found.
That will mean the Free Store is going to move to new space, likely at the end of Court Street near Orange, where Project Storefronts is helping to negotiate new free space. Bodell nor Murphy said they were not at liberty to reveal landlord or precise location.
Ben Aubin, another of the Free Store founders, called the move a success for the program. “This [the 55 Church space] has been vacant for three years. We move here for three months, and it’s rented. We’re not too stressed [about the move].”
Marion Hunt.
As the setting sun in the west lit up the display windows, inside and out at least 40 people watched Shoenburg in his first ever turn on the runway as well as Marion Hunt, another co-founder of the store, who was modeling a fetching green outfit.
Bodell said that Hunt will be the manager of the next version of the Free Store. Currently she’s the prime instructor of the workers at the all-volunteer store, teaching especially young people work habits and giving them retail experience.
“And also to teach them respect. It’s all about community and respect,” Bodell said. Then she and Murphy talked about Eileen Morerro’s off-the-shoulder dress and dashing hat.
“It’s all about the ensemble,” Murphy said.
Meanwhile another 50 people were at the 100 Crown St. open house enjoying tasty and cardiovascularly friendly tomatoes and potatoes with walnut, garlic, and low-sodium tamari garnish prepared by Anne Esselstyn (pictured with her husband, retired surgeon Dr. Caldwell B. Esselstyn).
They are the progenitors of Ted and Zeb Esselstyn, whose City Bench business at 100 Crown.
Esselstyn & Flood.
Ted, with his friend Joe Flood, who was entertaining with his “Hotel Albert” blues number, said that it is too soon to tell whether City Bench would ultimately become a paying renter at 100 Crown.
As part of city contract, the Esselstyns are now milling trees into benches, tables, stools, and more at the parks department facility at the Pardee Rose Garden space off State Street.
“Our entire business model is about New Haven. We’ll definitely be in New Haven,” he said. But precisely where the retail outlet will be is still up in the air,.
Pre-runway Shoenburg & Volunteer Robert Singleton.
Next Friday night, the open house activities at 100 Crown will include an organic wine tasting, Connecticut specialty foods, and bluegrass music, said Bodell.
It was unclear whether 55 Church would be available or be in transition to its paying renter.
Ben Aubin of the Free Store estimated that the new edition of the store will be open by Sept. 15. “While we’re on hiatus, we’ll do a free flea market on the Green, so there’ll be interaction in the meantime,” he said.
“It’s like The Independent,” Aubin said of his business. “We give away content for free, and we make money around the margins.”