Fun at the Festival: LW! at weekend street fair

REPORT from the FIELD

By Cristiana Peña

This past weekend brought the annual Columbus Avenue Festival to the Upper West Side.  Events like this are right up LW's alley -- it gives us the opportunity to escape the four walls of our office and mix and mingle (out on beautiful Columbus Avenue, no less) with folks who value and love the neighborhood as much as we do.

LW's Sarah Sher has the table set, tote in hand ... she's ready to talk about landmarks!

This year, I was joined by our newly minted Program Coordinator Sarah Sher and our graduate intern Kate Gilmore (no stranger to this blog).  We shared information about ongoing advocacy work, such as the West-Park Presbyterian Church, distributed copies of our latest Map Newsletter, and generally made merry.

And for the first time in a long time, we had stuff to sell!  For a modest donation ($3, $20 and many denominations in between!), visitors to the LW! table walked away with a historic map of a Manhattan neighborhood, or a "vintage" copy of a Harper's Weekly article, or an artistic representation of Grand Central Terminal, or one of many other odds and ends.  The map and photo sale was a big hit and we heard lots of encouragement (both at the fair later via Twitter) from folks as to planning other opportunities to sell these pieces of the past.

Our good friend Brendan walks away with his own Bromley map of northern Manhattan.
Thanks for all your support, Mr. Shera!

Kate, Cristiana and Sarah with a sample of one of the hundreds (literally!) of maps
available at Sunday's street fair.

But it wasn't all work on Sunday.  Kate G. made sure to peruse the other stalls and visit our friends at Soutine Bakery (Kate's a regular).  The tasty treats they had out for the festival has us dreaming of what Soutine Bakery and owner Madge Rosenberg have planned for Landmark Feast (coming this Sunday!).  Excited to see (and taste!) for ourselves.

Soutine Bakery tempts passersby on Sunday.

To all who swung by to say hi (@westsiderag, @NewTasteUWS and many others!), thank you!

History to Hang on Your Wall

This weekend, let's make a deal!

This Sunday, September 18th, is the annual Columbus Avenue Festival, sponsored by the West Manhattan Chamber of Commerce.  LANDMARK WEST! will be there!  The street fair is a great opportunity for us to share information about our historic neighborhood, make new friends, and hear -- directly from you -- just what you LOVE about the West Side.

                 WHEN:  Sunday, Sept. 18th, 12PM/noon to ... whenever!
               WHERE:  Northeast corner of Columbus Avenue at West 67th Street
                                  (if for any reason we have to relocate,
                                   just look for us as you stroll the Avenue!)

And this year, we're adding something new to our traditional roster of street fair assignments.  In addition to handing out copies of our latest Map Newsletter and helping folks sign up for our informative emails, we've got stuff to sell!

What kind of stuff, you ask?  All manner of "vintage" prints and photos!  For a modest contribution -- four dollars, twenty five cents, make us an offer! -- you can walk away the proud new owner of images like this one:

That's just the beginning.  We asked our summer interns Ingrid and Zack to help us give the blogosphere a sneak peek at the not-at-all-particular collection of images that awaits ...

We have to agree with the interns, the image on the left is TOO GOOD.  What are they looking at?  What's happening behind the camera?!?!  Tell us what you think at the street fair!

And these are only the beginning.  We'll post a few more samples before Sunday, but they'll hardly be a dent in terms of our large collection.  So meander along Columbus Avenue this Sunday and visit us at West 67th Street!