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A neighborhood staple at one of the Upper West Side’s busiest corners has suddenly closed — and it turns out the spot was more than just a place to grab a coffee and a sandwich.
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A “Store Closed” sign appeared on the door of 94 Corner Cafe at 2518 Broadway (at the corner of 94th Street) around Monday, March 16, according to reader Roni Katz, who tipped us off. Katz noted the cafe had still been open as recently as Saturday, March 14. When we called the listed phone number, it had been disconnected.Google Maps imagery suggests the cafe had been operating at this location since around 2010 or 2011. Before it, the space was home to 94th Street Blueberry Farm.
Google Maps, 2011
Google Maps, 2009
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What makes the closure of this otherwise unassuming corner spot particularly poignant is a footnote in New York art history. In 2014, renowned photorealist painter Richard Estes chose the cafe’s facade as the subject of a major new work — simply titled Corner Café — which was later exhibited at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) at Columbus Circle as part of the show Richard Estes: Painting New York City. It was the first solo Estes exhibition ever mounted at a New York City museum.
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Estes, born in 1932, is widely regarded as one of the founders of the international photorealist movement — a style defined by paintings so meticulously rendered they are often mistaken for photographs. He is best known for his paintings of New York City scenes, which frequently depict storefronts, building atriums, and reflective surfaces like shop windows. His work has been displayed at the Whitney, the Guggenheim and the Met, among prestigious museums.The museum described Corner Café at the time as a careful, almost obsessive study of New York’s commercial streetscape — a meticulous depiction of what it called an “unexceptional storefront.” The irony, of course, is that Estes saw something worth preserving in it. Now the building is all that remains.
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