Stoop and the City: This New Yorker turns her UES brownstone into a seasonal destination
All photos courtesy of Kristi Hemric/Stoop and the City
Kristi Hemric’s stoop is a destination. A stranger once reached out asking if he could propose to his girlfriend in front of it (after dinner and a wedding invite from the couple, they were no longer strangers). Another person posted a video of themselves walking across the Brooklyn Bridge to the Upper East Side just to check it out. Both were enticed by an elaborate Lego garden display Hemric and her husband spent weeks building and installing. “All of a sudden hundreds of people were stopping by every day,” she said. “The Lego one had my jaw on the floor. I was shocked.”
For the past three years, Hemric has made decorating her stoop on East 78th Street a passion project. And with the success of her Instagram account Stoop and the City (which boasts over 600,000 followers), “stoop influencing” has become a paid gig at times. She even appeared on the “TODAY” show recently.
A mom of four with experience in travel influencing, Hemric said she appreciates that she can make money off something that brings her joy right at home with her family.
It all started with some scaffolding. With a construction project obstructing the facade of her brownstone, Hemric decided to put some faux flowers on it simply to make it look a little nicer.
“I basically just thought our house looked terrible, so I was trying to make a solution for it,” she said.
When fall rolled around, she switched to pumpkins, then holiday decor, and in the doldrums of winter, she kept going “after the twinkle lights come down.” People started taking notice. For Valentine’s Day, she made giant love letters out of foam to brighten the gray February cityscape. Eventually the scaffolding came down, but the decorations keep going up.
“It started small and it’s gotten bigger, and certain things have taken off, like when I decorated for the Knicks (this year),” she said.
While the Lego installation was one of her most viral (and she enjoys the challenge of decorating during the less obvious winter months), Halloween is a crown jewel of stoop-decorating season — and not just at Hemric’s home, but on the whole block.
Last year, Hemric gave out 1,800 pounds of candy in three hours, and she predicts that with Halloween falling on a Saturday this week, it will be even “crazier” this year. She throws a big party, which “feels like a scene from a movie, how many people come…it’s a blast.”
This year’s Halloween stoop display has flowers and foliage with skeletons interwoven. While she said the Halloween installation usually gets scarier as the day approaches, this year they’ve decided not to get too spooky.
“There are so many talented decorators on UES,” she said, but feels she’s inspired her street to “up its game.”
Hemric’s background is in photography and production. Coming up with and executing creative ideas is her bread and butter, and she and her husband like to DIY as much as possible — and they also reuse pieces, finding new and creative ways to repurpose them.
“We involve the kids,” she said. “The kids wanted a candy stoop [with] M&M’s, so we made big foam M&M’s.” The projects (usually at least two new designs a month) have even expanded neighborhood-wide.
“The restaurant on the corner … offered to help store stuff, or they ask to borrow stuff. We all work together, which is fun. There is a couple in the Midwest, and they started decorating, and they messaged us. And that’s the whole thing — to bring a little happiness to the neighborhood, home, and the community,” she said.
“I put myself out there, but the gift to us is we know our neighbors and community. We stop and talk, and it brings us all closer together.”
Hemric said the crowds and passersby have all been kind. This time of year, in particular, a lot of people go on neighborhood strolls to see Halloween decorations, but she did not realize how much people would appreciate the beauty she strives to create outside her home.
“The whole point is for people walking by to leave a little happier than before,” she said. “It’s like an art installation.”
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