This Saturday, December 14, follow the candy canes to the second annual Holiday Window Display Competition on Grand Street, between Lorimer and Humboldt Streets in East Williamsburg, where shoppers can vote for their favorite window display—bestowing a $100 art store gift card to the winning high school design team and a $100 general gift card to one lucky voter.
The fun neighborhood competition is hosted by local merchant group, the Grand Street Business Improvement District (BID), and seeks to showcase student talents, foster connections between youth and small businesses, increase foot traffic on the local commercial strip, promote economic development in the community, and get students thinking about possible career opportunities.
Students from four local schools—the Green School; High School for Enterprise, Business and Technology; Progress High School; and the High School for Architecture and Design—will be competing in the design competition, installing window displays at 12 businesses.
The teams of three to five students each spent the last few weeks planning their designs, which will greet customers of shops like Flores Del Valle, Sisto Pharmarcy, Nieves Latin Dance Studio, Lily Thai, Your Spoiled Pets, Pop-Up Artspace, Camporese Hardware, Bikesmith and more.
The festivities will kick off at 1 p.m. on Saturday, December 14 at Café Chillo at 702 Grand Street, where votes will be collected. There will also be face-painting and Santa Claus to entertain the kids, and a Grand Street scavenger hunt for the adventurous.
The winner of the window display competition will be announced on December 18.
According to Grand Street BID Executive Director Artineh Havan, this year’s event is bigger than last year’s, with double the number of schools and four more participating businesses.
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