The Man with a Stand

Mike Matthews honors late grandmother with an NYC advice stand. 

Through the blur of Central Park runners, fleets of Citi Bikes and friends chattering on their lunch breaks, there’s a moment of stillness at Sheep’s Meadow as two strangers encounter one another on either side of a makeshift purple booth. A chalkboard sign, also purple, reads “What’s something you need to let go of?” and a woman with a kind smile sits behind it. 

The Grandma Stand allows New Yorkers to seek advice, talk through emotions or just share a brief conversation with an experienced grandmother. It doesn’t matter that she is not their own. 

On a Monday afternoon, passersby seem intrigued by the booth, reminiscent of Lucy’s 5¢ Advice booth in “Peanuts.” Some strangers stop by quickly to say hello or inquire, others linger for twenty minutes. This doctor is in, but she doesn’t charge. Not even 5 cents.

Shelly Ng, a Brooklyn native, saw the Grandma Stand on Instagram and felt drawn to bring her friends. Now, four of them approach the booth, giggling and hugging while summoning the nerve to approach the Grandma of the day, Dana, also a first timer at the booth. 

“I just wanted to talk to someone with a different perspective and experience than me,” says  Ng, 27. “There’s something about talking to a grandma that’s just very nice and enlightening - or at least that’s something you see in movies.”

For Ng and two of her friends, a Chinese language barrier separates them from their own grandmothers. They can communicate on a basic level, but it’s difficult to talk about, as Ng puts it, “the deep stuff.”

“The conversations I have in my family are very different,” Ng says. “I don’t have the words for it in my language. I wanted to talk to a grandma that I don’t know.”

Off to the side of the stand, Mike Matthews, its founder, greets those who stop to admire. He stands roughly six feet tall, with a welcoming smile and warm embrace, as if he’s known these strangers for years. 

The stand is personal for Matthews, who envisioned this with his own grandmother, Eileen Matthews, in 2012. At 95, Eileen was missing her trips to and from New York City from Seattle, where she had moved in with Matthews’ parents while he was in college. Visiting her “favorite” grandchild had become too difficult. So, Matthews found a way to bring New York City to her. 

Matthews bought a lemonade stand from Etsy, painted it purple (Eileen’s favorite color) and lugged the 80-pound structure around New York City until he found the perfect spot on the Upper West Side. He set up his laptop on top of the booth and strangers began talking to his grandmother as if she were their own. 

“My grandma has so much to offer and so much value and love to give, that my family can't even absorb all that,” Matthews says.  

Getting to know her as an adult allowed him to be more present and appreciative of their time together. 

Strangers sat and talked with Eileen via Zoom every week until she died, at 102, in 2018. With that, Matthews retired the Grandma Stand, until six months ago when he saw a need to restart the initiative.

Now, Matthews has assembled a network of grandmothers who want to be part of the program. It started with a few women he knew personally from church or through family or mutual friends. Now he says he has over 30 women asking to be a part of the Grandma Stand, from all corners of the United States. Many are retired; some just want an opportunity to feel seen again. 

“In New York, we look past each other, we don't make eye contact or acknowledge each other,” Matthews says. “I don't think that we fully appreciate how lonely and looked over senior citizens feel.” 

Connection is important for Matthews, a social media marketing professional who also founded The Mobile Culture, a New York social marketing consultancy that specializes in healthcare, pharma, biotech and consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands.

“My wife has to remind me that this isn’t actually my full time job,” Matthews says with a laugh. 

Most of the women who volunteer at the Grandma Stand have told Matthews that they no longer  feel a part of the community and that interacting with people around the city helps them feel reconnected, much as it did for his own grandmother. 

Grandma Sharon Fitzgerald, a former geologist, information systems associate and current grandmother to seven, took her first turn  in November at a booth in Tribeca. The chalkboard question was “What’s something your parents taught you?” and she was overwhelmed by the stories of tolerance, love and acceptance New Yorkers shared. 

“The booth is rooted in Mike's philosophy of just treating everybody nicely, and let's make everybody feel good about themselves,” Fitzgerald says 

“New Yorkers are all rushing here and there and I think it's nice to offer somebody a little breather,” she adds. “Let's think about something good, and let's talk about that for a little bit.”

Several companies have approached Matthews offering sponsorship, gifts or treats in exchange for advertising. But he won’t take a dime. 

“I've refused to profit off of my grandma for anything like that,” Matthews says  -- except

for once. A nursing home offered Matthews $1,000 to use Grandma Eileen’s image in a video segment called “How to talk to old people.” Matthews agreed and used the money to buy his grandmother a new flat screen TV. 

Ng and her three friends sit with Grandma Dana for about 10 minutes each. Though out of earshot of one another, they occasionally look back at their friends with eyes filled with tears and admiration. 

“I met a lot of young girls in their twenties today,” Grandma Dana says. “A common theme was letting go of expectations for yourself.”

Dana, who just retired from her job as a NICU nurse at Lenox Hill Hospital, acknowledges  that one’s twenties are a time full of choices - in relationships, career paths, friendships and lifestyles. Having someone to talk to who has been through it can reassure people that it’s all going to be okay. 

Grandma Dana speaks to the last woman for more than 20 minutes, their hands intertwined across the table and eyes locked. At one point, Dana rummages through her purse and offers her a tissue. Towards the end she runs around the booth to share an embrace. 

The interaction stops New Yorkers in their tracks, with many crowding around to see how these two unlikely friends had met. Many take photos and ask Matthews how to get involved with the Grandma Stand. 

“It's kind of amazing how everything disappears when they're with a grandma,” Matthews says. “ Just a grandma that they can trust, that's not there just to talk. Grandma is there to listen.”

Dana’s shift is supposed to last two hours this  Sunday, but the more New Yorkers start lining up, the more important the conversations feel. The stand continues for extra hour, until the last lonely hearts have  shared their story. 

Finally, Matthews packs  up the stand, now redesigned to be much lighter than the original, and loads it on the back of his e-scooter. He rides home to Morningside Heights.