Against all odds, New York’s artist buildings survived

New York’s reputation as a beacon for artists was never inevitable. Only after World War II destabilized Europe was the city able to take over Paris as the commercial center of the art world. Veterans returning from abroad found a new diversity of arts programs at universities and art schools thanks to the abundance of federal education subsidies made available by the GI Bill. The expansion of government-subsidized housing loans meant that cheap space was also easy to come by, as New York had an ample supply of residential and industrial buildings at the time. In the decades that followed, which saw the rise of Abstract Expressionism, followed by Pop Art, followed by Minimalism – all locally grown movements – the city also became the capital of what we now call the art world, a multibillion-dollar, largely unregulated global world. economy of galleries, auction houses and fairs that has grown without interruption through wars, recessions and two pandemics.

No part of this system would function – or have any meaning – without the artists themselves. They are the real reason why New York and the art world are synonymous: even as real estate prices have reached heights that would shock post-war pioneers, artists still live here and, more importantly, they still work here. There are artists’ studios in virtually every neighborhood of every neighborhood, ingrained in the city’s architecture, unlike bodegas and pizzerias. Apart from the fact that they are ubiquitous, no generalizations can be made about these spaces. One of the joys of covering art in New York is the opportunity to see firsthand the range of environments in which artists work: from opulent homes or cramped and dingy, windowless rooms; from converted office spaces or cavernous factories; in a large workshop or behind a computer in the kitchen alcove of a studio apartment.

But the city has always romanticized artist-dominated buildings, the kind of communal spaces in which each unit can house an artist’s studio (and sometimes, unofficially, their homes, too). With this in mind, we wanted to document a sample of the artist buildings that currently exist in New York: a floor of the Brooklyn Army Terminal, a former military depot and supply base in Sunset Park; a shared space for photographers in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; a warehouse (and former textile mill) in Ridgewood, Queens; an office building above what used to be a Dunkin’ Donuts in Manhattan’s financial district; and a loft in TriBeCa, a relic of the 1960s and early 1970s, before the area was zoned for residential use, when artists illegally took over abandoned factory buildings. (The city had to mark stairwells and doorways with signs that read AIR, which means “artist-in-residence,” so firefighters would know how to rescue them in an emergency.) In an almost unprecedented show of perseverance, the city succeeded the same artist, Don Dudley, 93, has worked in this loft since 1971.

What is shown here is not definitive, and perhaps not even fully representative of what it looks like to have your own artistic space in the city. Artists can and do work anywhere and, like their work itself, are limited only by the scope of their imagination – and their finances. To even own a studio, you must be able to afford the purchase or have a kind and understanding landlord, both rarities in today’s real estate market. As of 2024, it has never been more difficult for artists to find a place to work. In Manhattan, average rents have risen by 15 percent compared to the level just before the corona crisis, and in the other boroughs things are not much better. (In Brooklyn and parts of Queens, rents are at least 10 to 15 percent higher than they were in March 2020.) So artists have had to create a kind of whisper network to resist New York’s undeniable advance in the art market. ironically turned on. Suitable spaces are passed on, sublet, shared in secret. Most are temporary solutions before an artist – who has outgrown his space or become expensive – needs to move on.