CITY OF NEWBURGH – Anthony Bruce was at a store on First Street in December when he saw City of Newburgh police cars speeding toward the area where he had opened Tech World, a computer repair and sales shop.

If Bruce had been in his Liberty Street shop he might have seen the gunman firing, in broad daylight, at the black sedan on South Street. He may have been one of the onlookers who watched the sedan plow into a tree.

It was the kind of incident that made customers afraid to visit his shop, Bruce said.

“People should be able to travel around in the neighborhood without this going on,” said Bruce, who retired as a programmer for IBM. “After that I made a decision and said, ‘It’s time to go.’ ”

Two months later he is in a safer, bigger location south of Broadway. It is also on Liberty Street, but blocks and worlds away from the north-of-Broadway hot corner that South and Liberty streets have become.

In addition to repairing computers and cell phones, selling desktops and laptops, and offering networking and computer-security services, Bruce will open up the much-larger space to art and social events.

And pedestrians passing the display window will get a treat: exhibits by local artists, with a new one installed every two months.

“There won’t be a lot of chaos over there,” Bruce said of his new location. “... It's quiet and peaceful.”

A table held shrimp and other appetizers and the sounds of an upright bass filled 113 Liberty St. as Bruce opened the doors to his new shop on Friday. The location boasts twice as much space as his previous shop and more foot traffic, a benefit of sharing an area with restaurants, a bar, a wine store and other shops.

Now his next-door neighbor is Palate Wine and Spirits, and Tech World shares a block with the Wherehouse and Ms. Fairfax restaurant. Across the street is Juice Headquarters, and less than a block away is Caffe Macchiato.

Aquanetta “Ferry Godmother” Wright and her friend Ramona Torres once opened an art gallery on the same block as the old Tech World. Bruce became a regular sponsor of Wright’s summer jazz series, and now he is turning over his display window to their artistic tastes.

Each of the window’s art exhibits will have a technology theme, said Wright, who will curate with Torres.

“I said this would be a great opportunity for us to have a different kind of gallery,” Wright said. “No one really focuses on window design.”

lsparks@th-record.com