Allan Appel Photos
Pinkberry didn’t last long on Chapel Street, but the space won’t be empty for long either. Fred Giampietro plans to move in to the storefront, serving treats for the eyes instead of for the stomach.
Giampietro (pictured) is moving his eponymous art gallery to the 2,300-square-foot space at 1064 Chapel St., he disclosed on Thursday. Giampietro is a veteran of previous galleries in Manhattan and ran his first in New Haven decades ago, on East Street.
The gallery’s move brings one of the only two commercial galleries in the city — the other one is Reynolds Fine Art on Orange Street — to a location less than a block away from the Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) and the Yale Center for British Art.
Despite the hype of its opening, the Pinkberry chain outlet couldn’t survive New Haven’s yogurt wars.
Giampietro said he signed a long term lease on Wednesday with the landlord, Chapel Investments, LLC. The formal ribbon cutting of the new gallery space should take place in mid-January.
As part of the move, Giampietro will eventually close both his Erector Square location and his more recent Orange Street location (pictured), although both will have exhibitions running through the holidays, he added. To prepare for the new chapter in the life of the gallery, the firm recently hired Jason Weller, who was the chief art preparator at the Hudson River Museum.
Giampetro, who exhibits living artists who practice representational abstraction, said “we’ve been looking for a long time” for a location that could get foot traffic from people interested in the arts. He is “wildly excited” about being a hop, skip, and jump away from two major museums. “I don’t know of any other location where there’s a major museum right across the street,” he said.
The store is also right below the offices of world-famous Pelli Clarke Pelli architects and less than two blocks away from the Yale School of Art, several of whose faculty and students have had shows at the gallery.
“Being at the intersection of art and architecture couldn’t be a better spot,” he said.
In a wide-ranging discussion about the move, Giampietro said that he expanded his original Erector Square location to a satellite on Orange Street to grow the “walk-in” art business. “We were doing pretty well, but we weren’t getting the foot traffic.” Ninety percent of the gallery’s sales are online. The Chapel Street move is designed to rectify that.
Giampetro’s goal is to have half the total sales online and half from interested people coming in. “Today a woman came down to Orange Street and bought two pieces,” he said.
“Plumb Line,” oil on canvas, by Karen Dow, currently at Giapietro’s 91 Orange St. Gallery.
She found the space entirely by accident in the Ninth Square as she wandered down from The Study hotel on Chapel Street.
“How many [other] people have not found us?” he asked rhetorically.
Giampietro remains a believer in the development of New Haven neighborhoods, which is why he planted his first two galleries in town in Fair Haven and Ninth Square.
“But at one point I had to ask myself, ‘Why am I mounting these expensive shows, bringing in some great talent, but selling to people outside of New Haven?’ It’s not New Haven’s fault. It’s my fault I’m not in the right location. The people who go to Yale and come here [to town] are a large knowledgeable base of people who love art and architecture. It [New Haven] is not just a New England center, but an international center.”
The line outside Pinkberry for the April opening.
“My idea of going to Yale is like [going to] Chelsea [in Manhattan],” Giampietro said. “The Yale University Art Gallery are my numbers. They attract hundreds, thousands of people every day. That’s our critical mass of people. For us it’s a major coup. I’d rather be here than in Chelsea. A great opportunity.”
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Does anybody know who the Pinkberry franchisee was? (seemingly anonymous to this day.)
And did their workers ever get paid their final checks?
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/10/06/pinkberry-workers-claim-wage-theft
"Jermaine Ramirez Bulls, who recently quit his job at the Chapel Street location, said that Pinkberry still "owes him at least $200." Pouncey said Pinkberry owes him about $400 in unpaid checks."
"Desmond Raymond, another employee currently enrolled in Gateway Community College, said one female co-worker was missing $600 in wages even after two months, and that another Pinkberry employee sued the franchise owner in order to receive his payment. Raymond said that although he has received all of his wages, they were never paid on time."
""Checks would bounce more frequently than they would ever go through," Bulls said. When the employees, including managers, reached out to the franchise owner about the inconsistency of payment, they received no responses, Pouncey said."