miLES was a civic startup that opened up vacant storefronts for popups by creatives, entrepreneurs, and community organizations. It was founded by architect Eric Ho at a time when there were over 200 empty storefronts in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

I joined forces with Eric in 2013, during the Kickstarter campaign that funded the rent for the first seven popups and the buildout of his Storefront Transformer (modular furniture that transforms to accommodate retail, restaurants, and more). Over the three years that we worked together, I took the lead on community and communications. That involved content strategy, newsletters, social media, coordinating and collaborating with pop-uppers, promoting pop-ups, and press outreach.

miLES scaled to five cities and enabled more than 150 popups, including a culinary popup by Ghetto Gastro, gallery popups from local artists, a financial services popup by Square, retail popups from emerging brands, a syringe exchange popup from The Space at Tompkins, makers workshops, a pop-up farm in an abandoned diner, and more.

It was featured in the New York Times, Huffington Post, Fast Company, Good Magazine, PSFK, and local publications like Bedford & Bowery.