On the competition's doorstep.
Eleven chalk sidewalk stencils across Hell's Kitchen, several painted directly outside competing laundromats. After a rival kept peeling Bubly Fresh's old decals off the concrete, the brand switched to chalk that can't be lifted, in Knicks blue and orange, the week the city was watching the Finals.
- Placements11
- Cities1
- FormatMulti-format
- Documented12install photos on file
A laundromat that put its name on rival sidewalks.
A laundromat lives or dies on its block. Bubly Fresh sits on West 50th Street between 9th and 10th, and its customers are the people already walking past: the renter hauling a bag down the block, the line cook coming off a shift. So we put the laundromat's name on the sidewalk those people use. Eleven chalk stencils across Hell's Kitchen, several of them painted on the pavement directly outside the laundromats Bubly Fresh competes with.
Bubly Fresh had tried sidewalk advertising before.
A previous agency ran adhesive decals, and the decals didn't last. Competing laundromats peeled them off the concrete within days. The client came to us with that exact problem: visibility on the sidewalk that a rival couldn't remove overnight.
Chalk stencils answer it. A decal sits on top of the pavement and lifts at the edge. A chalk stencil is sprayed through a mask into the surface texture of the concrete, so there's no edge to grab and no adhesive to peel. Taking one off means scrubbing and water, not a thumbnail. For a brand whose last campaign was being erased by the competition, the medium was the whole point.
The ask was plain: print "Bubly Fresh Laundry," the West 50th Street address, the hours, and the @bublyfreshnyc handle on the sidewalks of Hell's Kitchen, weighted toward the blocks where the competition already pulled foot traffic.
Where we ran it.
We worked the 9th and 10th Avenue corridor between West 46th and West 56th Streets, with two placements pushed east toward Midtown.
The logic was conquest, not coverage. Bubly Fresh's own storefront is on West 50th, and the stencils fan out from there along the avenues a customer actually walks. Several landed in front of competing laundromats. One sits on the sidewalk outside Clothespin Laundromat at 656 10th Avenue. Someone standing at a rival's door, waiting on a wash-and-fold, looks down and reads where else they could have gone, for free, with pickup and delivery.
The service: Sidewalk Stencil Advertising, chalk formulation.
Each stencil is two colors. The "Bubly Fresh Laundry" wordmark is blue. The address line under it is orange. That pairing was a choice. The install ran the week the Knicks were a game from the Finals, up three games to one, and the city was dressed in blue and orange. A laundromat can't buy an arena board, but it can lay the city's colors on the sidewalk in the days a neighborhood is already looking at that exact palette. The colorway reads as local before it reads as an ad.
Under the wordmark, every stencil carries what a walk-up customer needs to act: "All New | Great Service," "Free local pick up / delivery," the Monday-through-Friday hours from 6am to 11pm, and @bublyfreshnyc. Each placement names the same West 50th Street address, so a stencil eight blocks north still points home.
Install ran the afternoon of Friday, June 13.
Two crew members worked the corridor on foot, and the GPS log tracks them moving placement to placement from a little after 1pm to roughly 2:40. Each stencil is the same loop: clear the spot, set the mask, spray, lift, photograph. A few minutes on the ground per location, then on to the next address.
Friday into the weekend is the right window for a laundromat. Saturday is the busiest wash day of the week, and every stencil was down and legible before it arrived. The blocks we worked carry steady pedestrian traffic past pizza counters, delis, and the apartment doors themselves, so the stencils started getting read the same afternoon they went down.
Proof.
The photo set isn't studio work. It's the stencil in context, on the real sidewalk, with the competing awning or the passing cyclist in the frame, because that context is the proof the placement is where we said it is.
Bubly Fresh got the full manifest the same week: latitude and longitude per stencil, the address corridor, and the image set. The coordinates on the map below come straight off that documentation.
Notes.
The first is medium. When a previous sidewalk campaign keeps getting removed, the fix usually isn't more decals. Chalk stencils hold because there's nothing to peel, and they fade on their own schedule instead of a competitor's, which also keeps them clean under New York's rules for the sidewalk.
The second is placement. Most local advertising buys reach around the business. This run bought the sidewalk in front of the businesses taking that customer instead. A laundromat three blocks away is invisible. A laundromat's name under your feet while you wait at a competitor's door is not.
Why did chalk hold when the adhesive decals didn't?
A decal sits on top of the pavement and has an edge, so a competitor can lift a corner and pull. A chalk stencil is sprayed through a mask into the surface texture of the concrete. There is no edge to grab and no adhesive to peel, and taking one off means scrubbing and water. That was the whole reason the client switched mediums after the previous run kept getting stripped within days.
How long does a sidewalk stencil stay readable?
It depends on the formulation. Washable chalk reads 2 to 7 days. Biodegradable spray holds 10 to 30 days. A reverse-stencil clean tag, where the surface around the artwork is cleaned rather than sprayed, reads 2 to 6 weeks and fades as the surface re-soils. Bubly Fresh ran chalk, which fades on its own schedule instead of a rival's and clears without leaving anything behind on the concrete.
Is putting my name outside a competitor's door something I can do?
Sidewalk rules vary by city, which is why the formulation gets picked per market. Temporary chalk was the right call in Manhattan because it clears on its own and leaves the concrete as it was found. Every stencil on this run was photographed and coordinate-logged at install. Across 500-plus documented installs there are no municipal removals on record.
What does a stencil run cost for a single-location business?
Sidewalk stencil campaigns start at $2,500, with printing and installation included. Where a run lands above that depends on placement count and how much ground the corridor covers. This one was eleven stencils across ten placements on two avenues, which is a realistic shape for a local operator working the blocks around the storefront. Turnaround on a scoped quote is 24 to 48 hours.
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Campaign documented by Beyond Street Media's NYC crew, Hell's Kitchen, June 2026.
5 additional installs.
Where the stencils landed.
Eleven stencils across ten placements on the 9th and 10th Avenue corridor in Hell's Kitchen - one corner ran a matched pair. Every coordinate is pulled straight from the install documentation, address by address.
- 01656 10th Ave · Outside Clothespin Laundromat40.7623°N · 73.9933°W
- 02701 10th Ave40.7634°N · 73.9931°W
- 03748 10th Ave40.7651°N · 73.9912°W
- 04672 9th Ave · Beside a competing wash-and-fold40.7612°N · 73.9903°W
- 05706 9th Ave40.7624°N · 73.9895°W
- 06730 9th Ave40.7631°N · 73.9890°W
- 07796 9th Ave40.7651°N · 73.9874°W
- 08414 W 46th St40.7611°N · 73.9919°W
- 09301 W 50th St40.7626°N · 73.9862°W
- 10119 W 56th St40.7642°N · 73.9785°W
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