Here is a photo I found of the front of the store before we put the murals up on the facade. There are bookcases blocking the windows on the second floor, and someone had put tatami mats on the backs of the bookcases to make them more presentable, I suppose. What happened is that the mats got sun-damaged over time and, as you can see, the store began to look a bit derelict.The murals, done by Back to the Drawing Board, a company that has done pretty much any of the interesting storefront art you've seen around town, are supposed to be windows, giving passersby a look "into" the store. Inside, browsing the stacks, we see Mother Goose, a space alien scanning a copy of To Serve Man, and Dashiell Hammett looking like he's about to shoplift one of his own books.
One interesting back story to the mural: when the artist did the first draft, it looked pretty much like it does now, except the customers were much better dressed. More business casual than Clement Street. No offense to our beloved patrons, but the people in that first draft just didn't look like most of the customers we see in the store on a daily basis. So we had the artist replace some pantsuits with sweatshirts, and the mural was born.
