Bombay
Bistro
A restaurant storefront on a landmarked Greenwich Village block, where the hardest part of the design was everything I couldn't do.
Left: existing. Right: proposed.
On most storefronts, the question is how to get noticed. On a landmark building, the question is how much you're allowed to touch. This one is a 19th-century brick walk-up with a painted wood storefront, fire escape, cornice, and iron lanterns, all of it protected.
The restaurant still needed three things: a name people could see from the street, shade and identity at the entrance, and a way to keep winter air out of a small dining room. Each had to get through landmark review. So every decision started from the same question: if this came down tomorrow, would the building look exactly like it did before?
| Nothing lit. | Every element is non-illuminated. The name is painted on the awning skirt, the blade sign is vinyl and Sintra. At night the building's own lanterns do the work. |
| Nothing permanent. | The awning retracts flat against the wall. The vestibule is fabric on a pipe frame and comes off at the end of the season. Take it all down and the facade is unchanged. |
| Nothing new on the facade. | The cream beadboard, the window frames and the cornice all stay as they are. Signage only goes where the building already leaves room: under the cornice and on one projecting bracket. |
| Fewest holes possible. | The awning hangs from a single row of 3/8" lag bolts with shields along the head. No raceways, no conduit, no wiring run across the old wall. |
- Retractable awning. 14'-10" of Sunbrella Mediterranean Blue on a white retractable frame with a hood, pitch adjustable from 0 to 35 degrees, with 11'-1" clearance over the sidewalk. The name goes only on the unframed skirt, in painted yellow letters, with the B logo at each end. Nothing on the slope.
- Blade sign. 2'-0" by 2'-7", double-sided, non-lit. Shaped Sintra with clipped corners in beige and dark blue, closer to an old painted shingle than a modern blade. It hangs from a single bracket where pedestrians walking up Cornelia actually look.
- Seasonal vestibule. A small fabric enclosure at the door in the same Mediterranean Blue, with clear vinyl walls and door so the storefront stays visible behind it. The only branding is the gold B logo on the glass. It's built on a 1" pipe frame and is meant to come off in spring.
Color did a lot of quiet work here. The existing window frames on this storefront are already a deep navy. I picked Sunbrella Mediterranean Blue to sit next to them, so the awning and vestibule read as part of the storefront's existing palette, not as something added to it. Yellow and gold are kept to the lettering and logo only.
Elevation, retractable awning install detail, blade sign and vestibule with dimensions and specs.