The Roosevelt Island Visual Art Association (RIVAA) believes they can, and has taken preliminary steps in discussing ways its member artists might cooperate with local merchants to enhance their storefronts for the good of the community.

Members of RIVAA believe that the declining quality of Main Street’s facades is not only indicative of the morale of local merchants these days, as several of them apparently find it difficult to keep up with rent payments, but that it also repels business.

“We have to motivate the merchants…it is good business to keep our residents and visitors here to spend their money,” said Selwyn Fund, RIVAA’s Chair for the new initiative.  “The merchants may think they have a captive audience,” he continued, “but nevertheless senior citizens get bussed out to Astoria to do their shopping.”

Arline Jacoby, president of RIVAA, is similarly concerned, seeing great potential in an alliance between the arts and local businesses.  According to Jacoby, lighted shops and store windows full of exciting art works could convey a vibrant image that the Island needs.

“The Main Street shops aren’t business-friendly – they don’t seem to last long,” asserted Jack Walsh, an Island resident waiting for his bus outside Gristede’s.  “Maybe their storefronts would look better if they made more money.”

Elsewhere, arts-based development projects have been known to serve as a catalyst for commercial revitalization and in improving community culture.  However, some such examples, East Harlem and Long Island City, to name a few, were able to get the wheels turning only after getting the cooperation of their communities’ social, economic, and political players.

The head of Roosevelt Island’s Chamber of Commerce, Julie Palermo, agrees that action has to be taken.  “It’s not good at all,” she said in a phone interview.  “We need investors, loans, renovations.  We need a lot of help – from architects, retail experts, you name it.”

Palermo and other Chamber officials held a meeting Thursday afternoon at the offices of the Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation (RIOC), to bring together a variety of government organizations specializing in development issues.   Click here to read an article about this meeting.

Palermo expressed a need for Island organizations to move forward together in this effort, affirming the Chamber’s affinity on this issue with RIVAA.

In the past, the local arts and RIOC have been known to work together for this kind of goal. According to Selwyn Fund, former head of Roosevelt Island’s now disbanded Photographic Society, he and RIOC were able to negotiate a project years ago in which the Society’s photographs were displayed inside the windows of the vacant shops on Main Street.

Fund is interested in reinstating that method, popularly known as “phantom gallery” – the idea being that the empty spaces provide the opportunity for local artists to exhibit their work, while fostering economic development by focusing attention on available retail space. Theoretically, the “galleries” move from place to place as the facilities are leased.

“We’re trying to do a community service,” said Fund, who wants to see vacant storefronts, where windows are currently draped with a black covering, brought to life.  A first-time Island visitor from Queens, who gave her name only as Silvia, noted that while walking down the street she was often unable to distinguish the closed storefronts from the open ones.  “Nothing stuck out,” she said.

“When we first got the space for RIVAA from RIOC we made a promise to the community,” said Jacoby.  This promise of community enrichment, she went on to say, was, in fact, written into the gallery’s by-laws.

RIVAA’s by-laws describe the organization’s purpose and include the following language:
It is anticipated that the growth, expansion and recognition of Roosevelt Island as an art center will help to economically vitalize our community and enhance the beauty of an already stunning natural environment…we are a community organized and dedicated to enhancing the quality of life in our community through art, by initiating and sponsoring community events, art shows, participation workshops and beautification projects on the Island.

RIVAA is welcoming help from non-members.  Fund asks that those wanting to attend a future meeting on the subject call him at 212-980-8377.