Aperture, the 74-year-old nonprofit publisher of photobooks and its namesake magazine, has purchased and opened a permanent headquarters at 380 Columbus Avenue on New York's Upper West Side. The two-floor space occupies a building dating to 1886, refurbished by architecture practice Levenbetts, the firm behind the Queens Museum and five New York Public Libraries.

Executive director Sarah Meister says the building's former residential use shapes the visitor experience. "Because it was a residential building, it has an intimacy to it," she says. The ground-floor entrance offers street-level visibility aimed at passers-by rather than photography devotees alone. "Serious photographers will find you on the fourth floor of a side street in Chelsea," Meister notes.

The Upper West Side location sits outside downtown's art circuit, but Meister dismisses the concern. "Trendy arts neighbourhoods… move with fashion," she reasons. The new neighbours are the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Historical and Central Park. Aperture funded the purchase through private individuals including Judy Glickman Lauder and Jon Stryker, plus grants from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. "It has 140-year-old load-bearing masonry, and it just has a great feel to it," Meister says.

Inside, past a Majestic Photobooth, the bookstore stocks Aperture's output — four magazine issues and twelve books per year — with a backlist reaching back to the mid-1960s. A pop-up collaboration with Dashwood Books, the city's de facto photobook purveyor, puts founder David Strettell's selection alongside Aperture's titles, with some Dashwood staff moving uptown. "It's just a smarter way of being," Meister says, "rather than us trying to do what they do, because they do it so well."

The shop will host book launches, including a new monograph by Elle Pérez and the Catherine Opie edition of The Photography Workshop Series, and the Aperture PhotoBook Club will hold follow-up discussions. Merchandise includes Vik Muniz printed umbrellas, placemats printed with images from Stephen Shore's American Surfaces, and branded caps and tote bags. "There'll be a handful of things in the store in collaboration with artists or people whose design sensibility we really respect," Meister says.

The building's split levels — one half below street level, one half above — give visitors views into the magazine, production and book teams at work. "You can see in, and we're happy about that. I think it's going to give us a new understanding of our audience," Meister says. Staff are encouraged to sit at a table in the bookstore and talk with visitors.

The inaugural gallery installation, Aperture Loves New York, curated by Meister and on view until 01 November, spotlights photographers integral to depicting the city, including Diane Arbus, Tina Barney, Dawoud Bey, Awol Erizku, Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, Deana Lawson and Carrie Mae Weems, with a print loaned from the Robert Frank Foundation. Temporary shows will run six to eight weeks, though "we don't want to become too rigid," Meister says. Works rest on a picture rail rather than hung, leaving exposed brick undisturbed. "That lack of preciousness is very intentional," she explains. "It's not a white box, and it never will be."

Future exhibitions will feature Alex Webb, Dionne Lee and Angélica Dass. A conversation series pairs Stephen Shore with MoMA curator Lucy Gallun on 03 October, Gillian Laub with Baxter St director Jil Weinstock on 14 October, and Coreen Simpson with Whitney curator Rujeko Hockley on 21 October. Aperture will continue its touring exhibitions and free online curricula for public school teachers and students. "Somebody once described Aperture as tentacular, which I love — not just because it rhymes with spectacular! It captures the breadth of what we do," Meister says.

Aperture, 380 Columbus Avenue, New York, NY 10024; aperture.org