In New York, an artist’s ability to create work is often directly linked to their ability to secure affordable housing. In a city where the median rent was $4,295 in December, according to Redfin, that can seem impossible.
For decades, a small group of the city’s creative class hasn’t had to worry too much about the rising market-rate rent. The nonprofit Westbeth Artists Housing community, with 384 rent-stabilized and Section 8 units, has been an affordable haven for artists since 1970. Occupying an entire city block at the western edge of the West Village, it also comprises commercial spaces, artist studios and a gallery where residents show their work. Rents typically run from around $900 for a studio apartment to $1,400 for a three-bedroom. Many notable artists and performers have called it home, including Robert De Niro Sr., Paul Benjamin, Vin Diesel and Diane Arbus, who committed suicide there in 1971.
“It eased the pressure of having to make a living,” said Roger Braimon, 57, a painter, who was still paying off debt from graduate school when he moved into Westbeth. Mr. Braimon first applied to join the community in 1995, but didn’t get a spot until 2009. “There was always this belief that Westbeth was this utopia of artists, and living in New York was so amazing, but the affordability is looming,” he said.
The wait list to get an apartment at Westbeth is notorious, with more than 460 people currently eager to snag a spot. Many residents never leave, making vacancies especially rare. (The wait list is currently closed, having last been open in 2019.)
But if the community is utopian, the structure itself less so. Elevators frequently get stuck and are unreliable. The roof has been leaking intensely. The wooden window frames have been deteriorating. To address these issues and future-proof the building, the complex is undergoing its first major renovation since it opened 55 years ago. In October, work began on an $84 million overhaul, which will also include facade work and the addition of a green roof. And 32 apartments, which have been void of tenants and left in disrepair, will be gut renovated, making room for some lucky artists to get off the wait list.
‘Nobody Wanted to Move Here’
From 1898 to 1966, the site was home to Bell Laboratories, the company that created the technology behind talking movies and the transistor. It was then redeveloped into the artists’ sanctuary, with renovations by the architect Richard Meier and funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. The project, which The Times reported cost $13 million, gained the support of several prominent New Yorkers, including the urban activist Jane Jacobs and the mayor at the time, John V. Lindsay.
But attracting residents in the beginning was somewhat of a struggle. “Nobody wanted to move here. It was in a totally out-of-the-way area,” said Christina Maile, an 80-year-old visual artist who had been living on the Lower East Side before being accepted to join Westbeth as a resident in 1970.
The neighborhood seemed “extremely quiet and kind of boring,” she said. But the rent, around $165 for a two-bedroom, and the nearby meat market persuaded her. Ms. Maile has been at Westbeth ever since, raising two children there along the way. In those early days, she recalled, a group of mothers got together to create a rotating day care: “We all took care of each other’s kids so that the parents could do their art.”
The community also took Ms. Maile’s career in unpredictable directions. When residents formed a feminist playwriting group, she joined and became interested in stage design, inspiring her to practice as a landscape architect. And more recently, after she wandered around one of the buildings and discovered that the printmaking studio was empty, she took up printmaking. “The maintenance man probably forgot to lock it,” she said. “There was all this equipment — paper, inks — covered in dust. It was so amazing.”
The collaborative lifestyle took intentional effort to foster. There were aspects of the complex’s design that weren’t conducive to community building, Ms. Maile said, like its long hallways. “There’s a lot of places that actually don’t encourage people to be communal,” she said. “The community wasn’t born right out of the sky.”
Today, much of Westbeth is unchanged from its early days, and several of the original tenants, like Ms. Maile, remain. But what has notably changed is the demand to live there. Not anyone can join the wait list — you have to be a practicing artist and submit an essay about your work, and your income must fall below a limit. In 2019, the limits ranged from $69,445 for a one-person household to $114,950 for a six-person household. To keep your spot on the list, you have to submit your tax returns and other documentation every year.
“I kept dreaming of it and reapplying every year,” said Mr. Braimon, who got his 550-square-foot studio apartment after nearly 15 years on the wait list.
Over the years, Westbeth has endured disasters both natural and man-made. In the 1980s, the community was $2.4 million behind on its mortgage, prompting the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to threaten foreclosure. And even back then it was in poor shape: As the Times reported in 1989, “the building has deteriorated, the rents have more than quadrupled, and the tenants have not always been on friendly terms.”
Then in 2012, Hurricane Sandy “walloped” the complex, said Peter Madden, the executive director of the nonprofit that runs Westbeth. The devastating storm caused a flood in the basement that nearly reached the ceiling and destroyed decades’ worth of residents’ artwork. Of course, the regular wear and tear that comes with being an artists’ colony has also taken its toll.
“A lot of tenants are just so rough on the building, like dragging stuff, giant wood frames on a cart, and they smack it against a wall and rip up metal,” said Mr. Braimon. “It’s just terrible.”
Lead, Asbestos and Flooding
Some tenants say the renovations are long overdue, and for some of the older residents, the updates are especially necessary. But because of the complex’s landmark status, needed work has been stalled in the past. The community is now trudging forward, and must get approval from the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission for many of the changes, making them costlier and more time-consuming.
The entire project is expected to be complete by 2028. Funding is coming from a mix of public and private sources, including grants from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, the National Park Service and New York State, as well as tax credits.
There are 684 wood-framed windows being replaced — to fit the original design, they have to be custom-ordered, Mr. Madden said. Each window, made of solid mahogany, costs over $20,000. On the facade, “we have this very distinctive yellowish brick,” Mr. Madden said. Each one that needs to be replaced must also be custom fabricated.
And perhaps to the dismay of those who’ve been eager to snag a unit, dozens of apartments have been sitting empty of tenants. “Frequently, our vacancies are due to the tenants passing away,” Mr. Madden said. “When somebody has lived in an apartment since 1972, we have to do a gut renovation, we have to address lead paint and asbestos.” This overhaul has finally allowed for the budget to make those updates, he added.
After Hurricane Sandy, a black line was painted in the basement to mark how high the floodwaters had reached. “It’s a constant reminder of how vulnerable the building is,” said Ms. Maile. Features of the project are aimed at weatherproofing for the future, including the installation of a green roof, which means that Westbeth will get a canopy of vegetation. Rainwater will be “absorbed by the green roof and then will slowly go down the roof drains into the sewer,” Mr. Madden explained.
For Ms. Maile, the renovation is about more than just improving day-to-day life at Westbeth in the present. She hopes that it will “allow the building to exist into the next century, so that people can still afford to be artists and live in New York.”
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