![]() ![]() “I knew that I had a certain clientele,” she explained. When the pandemic struck, Brown had to close her store for three months. “They understand preservation framing,” she said, adding that these customers also valued having a neighborhood business. That put her in a good position when gentrification swept through the neighborhood, and brownstone owners came by with their own artworks. She featured emerging artists like Danny Simmons and Jimmy Greene, whose Children’s Cathedral mosaic is part of the Utica Avenue subway stop. A survey of minority-owned small businesses in New York City, conducted by the non-profit Local Initiatives Support Corporation, found half were still unable to pay their full rent as recently as February.Ī former Ebony Magazine advertising executive, Brown originally opened the store in 1991 as a gallery selling posters and prints by people of color, mostly to African American collectors. It’s no small feat, considering how the city lost more than 630,000 jobs last year and retail was among the hardest- hit industries. After 30 years in business on Myrtle Avenue, Brown has learned how to pivot in changing times, embracing her strengths while also finding new customers. This emotional connection during the pandemic is part of why Clinton Hill Simply Art & Framing is still around. emotional connection to family, to neighborhood, to things that people want to embrace and bring it in their home,” she said. Brown saw similar behavior after the September 11th attacks. These works of art weren’t all just for nicer backgrounds on Zoom. “They go to the car, ‘Oh, the glass was broken.’” Other clients found works of art they'd gotten from relatives and decided to have them reframed. ![]() “They're looking around and saying, ‘Oh, I remember that photograph, what did I do with it?’”she recalled. She noticed a shift when people were stuck at home during the pandemic. ![]() As the owner of a custom framing store, Lurita “LB” Brown knows which objects her customers feel strongly enough to put behind glass. ![]()
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