Lily and Bob Schor’s connection to Blue Door started in 2002. Luis Perelman, Julie Cousens and Delma Hairston started The Blue Door in 2001.
Luis had organized a ceramic exhibition at Phillipse Manor Hall. Among the participants was a local ceramic artist, Lily Schor. When asked if she or anyone she know might be interested in helping our organization, she suggested her husband Robert, a lawyer and recently retired executive with U.S. Customs. She knew of his strong appreciation of Art and his vision of Art as a catalyst for community revitalization and renewal. He was interested and the collaboration between Luis and Bob began.

In the 6 years before the Blue Door Gallery was established, Bob and Luis, with an informal group of interested people, created numerous public exhibitions in various venues. In addition, we initiated Yonkers Green Wall in which Yonkers student prepared a series of panels on climate change that were installed in various locations in downtown Yonkers.
Blue Door was also responsible for the creation of a large mural in southwest Yonkers, ceramic decoration of planters, colorful painting of city garbage cans, numerous art exhibitions at the Yonkers Public Library, the creation of a public sculpture garden at Yonkers City Hall as well as many other projects.

It was Bob’s organizational and managerial skills, his fundraising efforts, his ability to make political and community connections, his expansive vision of where art might be shown, his tenacity in seeing a project to completion that helped keep Blue Door Artist Association alive, active and growing. He established Blue Door as a legal entity, negotiated rent free space, and found money for renovation and staffing.

In 2008 a new possibility for displaying art emerged. Bob Miller, then Director of Westhab offered us a storefront space in the Wydham Building, possibly for an art gallery. Now Bob’s energies were focused on organizing this new and challenging project. Along with Luis Perelman and Arle Sklar-Weinstein, Bob became one of the three Co-Executive Directors whose efforts have created the Blue Door Art Gallery, one of the first of several art galleries to grace downtown Yonkers. Until Bob’s retirement in 2015, he continued to explore ways to enable Blue Door Art Center to be a major venue for community art activities and now supports and participates in Blue Door by exhibiting his unique paintings.