GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Bridge St. Electric has been in its location for 95 years. It's one of several businesses along Bridge Street to have decades of history.
For ArtPrize 2024, the store is hosting 17 artists and dedicating all of its front window space to the entries.
"Almost feels like it's giving back to the community, participating in ArtPrize," said Darren Willey, the general manager. "With all the development on Bridge Street, it's just a great destination."
The store is also giving artists space inside to sell other pieces of their work.
"We have people come into our showroom that say that they remember being here with their grandparents," said Willey. "You've got a lot of that established history alongside the new developments."
At Swift Printing Company, visitors can find four art pieces showing abstract figures and characters rotating in circles.
Artist Walt Gutowski said while creating "Faces," the pieces he made inspired the ones that came after them.
"I do one idea or one face and when I'm done, something with that idea or face works for the next piece," said Gutowski. "The eyeballs of this guy are also the eyeballs for the other guy, and that's where I got the idea to have them spinning, so every way you look at it, you can catch all the characters and different ideas and get different perspectives."
What makes his venue special is the fact that it also doubles as his office at the business that's been in his family for several generations.
"My great-grandparents were immigrants that came to this area to live the American dream. My grandparents started Swift Printing in 1950 and then we moved, actually into this location, in 1954," said Walt's sister, Jessica Gutowski-Slaydon.
Gutowski-Slaydon serves on the board of the Stockbridge Business Association.
"We have a lot of people that truly care about the community, that want to live their American dream, and every business owner on the street has a really unique, interesting story," she said.
The Stockbridge Business Association just released a new visitor map highlighting businesses and locations across the city's West Side in hopes that visitors stop by for ArtPrize.
"Whether you're talking about Eastown or the West Side, there's such personality in the older neighborhoods that people don't always see," said Willey. "Between that and the burgeoning downtown, there's just a lot of different things to see."