It’s the kind of thing we heard a lot in 2020. An artist sharing a performance from a city stoop – creating an impromptu venue to provide some relief from the pandemic woes.

But for Peter Kendall Clark and his Brooklyn Heights neighbors, pandemic or not, it’s now a highlight of their week.

What You Need To Know

  • Peter Kendall Clark started singing on his neighbor's stoop after a few invitations and it quickly turned into a nightly event

  • Even though the pandemic is over and live performances are fully back, he keeps the "Songs from the Ledge" going

  • He takes the audience on a musical journey covering all genres and giving everyone a beautiful exposure to opera

“It brings the community together," Linda Moses, a longtime Brooklyn Heights resident said. "We have glorious music. Peter is so talented. And I am riveted. I am just riveted.”

“I resisted,” Clark said. "I resisted for a while but once I came out and started singing and people started coming, I was like, ‘I can’t resist this anymore.’ This is 215 times we’ve done this. Let’s give applause.”

“Songs from the Ledge” grew organically from another pandemic routine, the nightly 7 p.m. applause for the city’s Front Line Workers.

“I knew Peter was a singer, he’s my neighbor and friend, and I kept encouraging him to come out and sing with us and even if he had only sang ‘All You Need is Love’ it would have been fabulous,” said Marcy Chapin.

"She kept asking me, ‘Come out and sing?’ and I just thought, ‘That’s the last thing I want to do," Clark said. "But people loved it. I just decided, well this is something I can do.”

From one song, to at times an hour-long performance, Clark takes audience members on a musical journey. Exposing the young and old to opera – and other genres along the way.

“What I love about this is that I can sing what I feel like singing right at the moment and the lyrics of the song–lyrics you might have heard your entire life–suddenly have such a deeper meaning," Clark said.

And it’s created new relationships, bonded now by the music.

“So many of these people who are here tonight, I might never have said hello to them on the street," he said. "But we’re friends now. We’ve built a little community together.”

“He’s given this community so much. We all know each other now,” said Moses.

“Everyone looks forward to it," Chapin said. "Sometimes it’s the most they look forward to all week long. So it’s a beautiful thing for the neighborhood and it’s a beautiful thing for New York.”

For singing in solace and creating new friendships, Peter Kendall Clark is our New Yorker of the Week.