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In 2012, in an effort to connect his then 95-year-old grandmother Eileen to his fellow New Yorkers, Mike Matthews purchased an 80-pound lemonade stand off Etsy, hauled it around town and placed his laptop and a chair by it before video-chatting with his Seattle-based grandma.
“She couldn’t really travel anymore and she wanted to come to New York so I thought she could meet New Yorkers virtually,” Matthews recalls over the phone. “Every week, I would have a different question prompt to bypass the small talk and people would sit on the chair and talk to my grandmother. Conversations ranged from deep, emotional ones to more casual talks.”
Eileen passed away at the age of 102 in 2018 and Matthews decided to retire his grandma stand.
A lot has happened since: a global pandemic that upended the way we live and communicate with each other, inflation-related issues, political upheavals and a general sense of anxiety permeating all aspects of daily life across the country.
“About six months ago, I had an overwhelming feeling of everyone being on edge, stressed out and lonely and thought we need to have some good,” says Matthews. “So I said, why don’t we bring this back?”
Still living on the Upper West Side with his family, Matthews, who works in marketing and social media, decided to slightly revamp his project by buying a lighter, foldable lemonade stand painted purple, Eileen's favorite color, that he could carry around on his e-scooter and set up just about anywhere around the city.
Given Eileen's absence, Matthews has also expanded his roster of wise grandmas willing to dish out advice and grand worldviews to New Yorkers at large, following kick-off questions like "what do you spend too much time worrying about?" and "what's one thing you'd change about the how you were raised?"
“It started out again as grandmas of family and friends,” explains Matthews. “Now I get emails from different grandmas from all over the country and some of them appear virtually and others in person.”
Throughout the past few months, the instantly recognizable Grandma Stand has carried out 90-minutes-long sessions by Central Park, Tribeca, the Upper West Side and Soho, among other locations. Each day, the grandmother on deck gets to chat with 10 to 12 different people who are walking by.
“There is no rhyme or reason in selecting an area,” explains Matthews. “It’s the foot traffic, weather, time of day—now that the stand is portable, I can go anywhere.”
Matthews usually shares the session's discussion prompt and general location on the @grandmastand Instagram account about a day in advance, so that those interested in chatting with the chosen grandmother could arrange their schedules appropriately.
The project's magnitude and its reliance on direct communication among locals has undoubtedly shaped Matthews' outlook on life in the city.
“The longer you live in New York, the less you make eye contact with people,” he says. “You just tend to shut town and it gradually disconnects you from the city. It becomes one big blurb of people. All of a sudden, you take this unique thing—a stand on a street corner—and a person who wouldn’t look at you sits down and shares vulnerable stories. So every time I’m on my e-scooter, my love for the city doubles down and feel connected to it.”
Although careful not to get into politics directly, Matthews does concede that merely chatting with individuals who have spent more time on earth the average New Yorker has helped put things into perspective for a lot of participants.
“Having a seasoned individual say ‘Hey, we have been here before and, although it might not feel this way, it all turned out to be okay’ is comforting,” he says. “We are going to be okay.”