PARK SLOPE — To neighbors, he was a "cranky landlord," but it turns out the owner of a Seventh Avenue building was an artist who created hundreds of paintings in his building's street-level storefront, the New York Times reported Friday.
The long-shuttered storefront at 367 Seventh Ave. on the corner of 11th Street came to life this winter when construction started to renovate the space into an Italian restaurant set to open on May 4.
But before that, hidden inside for years, painter Leo J. Bates used the empty storefront as his studio, the Times reported.
"Behind the black gate was a world of color, hundreds of abstract works created and hidden away by Mr. Bates, who had a promising start as a painter in the 1970s before renouncing the art world and retreating to his storefront to paint," the Times wrote.
Bates died in 2013 and his widow sold the building last year for $3 million. Bates bought the building in 1978 for roughly $45,000 and owned two other walk-ups on the block, according to the Times.
When the couple came to the neighborhood, "shuttered storefronts were the norm. The buildings were in disrepair. There were few businesses. The area south of Ninth Street was known as 'El Barrio' and the most visited spot was a corner where drug dealers kept long hours," the Times wrote.
Bates hung out with well-known artists like Janet Fish and Robert Indiana early in his career, but he never reached a wide audience with his work, selling only a few dozen paintings, according to the Times.
Bates wasn't the only artist to use a Park Slope storefront as a studio.
On Fifth Avenue, artist Jonathan Blum has kept a storefront where he works and sells paintings since 2000, though unlike Bates, he welcomes visitors and puts his work in the window for all to see.
Blum was a finalist to win a solo show at the Brooklyn Museum in 2012, an honor he attributed to the foot traffic at his storefront.
