Commune of Creative Types' in the Burg is Emptied Out
Most of the dailies have stories this morning about the sad, curious evacuation of 475 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg. The FDNY designated the building a fire hazard on Sunday, forcing hundreds of tenants out of their apartments on one of the coldest days of the year. The FDNY said the building needed to be evacuated…
Most of the dailies have stories this morning about the sad, curious evacuation of 475 Kent Avenue in Williamsburg. The FDNY designated the building a fire hazard on Sunday, forcing hundreds of tenants out of their apartments on one of the coldest days of the year. The FDNY said the building needed to be evacuated because its owner, Nachman Brach, was storing flammable materials in the basement that he used to power a matzo bakery. More than 200 tenants lived and worked in 475 Kent despite the fact that the building doesn’t have a C of O for residential use, and now many of them are suddenly homeless. The Times describes the former pasta factory as a commune of creative types, and quotes residents who are confused and angry about the evacuation. One of those residents, Betsy Kelleher, said the timing of the evacuation was suspicious because there’s a pending court decision that might result in all the units being rent-controlled. They want to clean everyone out and then convert them into expensive condos, said Kelleher. The building had been lived in for a decade. According to Am New York, the first artists who leased spaces at 475 Kent had been evicted from illegal loft conversions in Dumbo.
For Evacuated Building’s Tenants, an Uncertain Future [NY Times]
475 Kent Avenue Evacuated, Due to Numerous Violations [Gothamist]
Residents of B’klyn Loft Evicted for Fire Code Violations [AM New York]
475 Kent Update: Holdout Says It’s “Creepy as Hell” [Gowanus Lounge]
A Holdout Stays in Brooklyn Loft [Metro]
Photo by i’m just sayin’.
12:14
Yeah what happened to the fight?
My friend Ken took the pictures of the helicopter hovering over AVE C those punkers were hardcore! To all you kids in Bushwhick: I say start your “barricade plan now”
Williamsburg has gone soft, flaccid. This place used to be great. Even the hipsters are leaving. Its all strollers and people shopping for shit they don’t need.
I live 20 years in not-up-to-code-building
I wouldn’t exactly call it “illegal”
But
“How ya gonna go?” I say they will have to take me out in a box.
Who knows?
…anyone ever read “War In The Neighborhood” over at 475 Kent? They didn’t even put up a little fight…people living in that great a building (and it is great – I’ve been to a few BBQs) that don’t barricade themselves in floor by floor and wait for the cops to come crashing in with the tank deserves to be thrown out.
Where’s the spirit people? Ahh…that would be the apathy of Generation Me at work…
If the squatters on 10th St. in the early 90’s had enjoyed easy access to the internet and cellphones, they never would have been thrown out. The pictures of the police wheeling in the tank and hovering overhead with the helicopter would have made national news, at the least. And you think Bloomberg would let it get out of hand in an election year? Hardly. The police brutality seen in the Tompkins Square riots would never had happened on his watch – and the residents of 475 would have won.
And if they didn’t – at least they would know that they gave it their all.
It’s bad enough when the city tries to kill what makes New York great, but it’s even worse when the residents let it happen. Hello, nail in the coffin…
Betsy Kelleher here.
I have been misquoted by the New York Times.
I never said there would be a possibility of “rent control”,
that’s ludicrous – I said “rent stabilization” because it’s been
known to happen many times in defacto, interim, multiple dwellings like this one in a residential zone. This would be justice and a step toward possible future loft law protection if the new bill on the table in Albany gets passed next time around. The place is only a disaster zone because some people with a lot of power in the city of New York have economic reasons for deciding it to be so – this week – after 10 years of 250 people living above a powder keg – give me a break.
What’s been going on here is criminal, I just wonder when the city and the State of New York are going to get around to deciding that a legitimate code of ethics and law should apply to landlord/tenant and real estate issues. Is this the time of CromwelI? feel like I’m living in a Fascist state when it comes to real estate in New York City. Pretty soon there will be nothing soulful left of the cultural community in this city… How do the developers, the landlords and the officials who take the bribes live with themselves?
Where is all of this ridiculous, ignorant, animosity coming from toward artists, and how did we suddenly become wearers of skinny jeans who don’t comb our hair, have trust funds, and who are lazy?
Prepare to be schooled:
1. This building has been occupied by artists for 10 years. 10 years ago, you couldn’t pay people to live in many neighborhoods in Brooklyn. No “gentrifiers” wanted to live in sketchy ‘hoods, with no services where transportation was iffy and getting mugged was a concern. Artists who need space typically move to or rent space in these types of neighborhoods because we need large spaces and lots of natural light, and many at the beginning of their careers are in the low to middle income bracket. Hence, a perfect place for artists are cheap, abandoned or under-utilized loft spaces. When neighborhoods were or are not gentrified (as Kent wasn’t back then), there is no interest from NYPD or NYFD in terms of what’s going on in any building. There is a verbal agreement between building owners and tenants to mind their own business, use the spaces as they see fit, pay their rent on time, and everyone wins. Artists get big, airy, light spaces from which to conduct their business, and the owners get the empty spaces rented.
2. I do not have a single friend who is an artist who is lazy, unwashed, or not working their ass off. No one I know is asking for a citizens award for being an artist, but to make these outlandish assumptions about our lifestyle and work ethic is fucked up. I have never not been balancing working 2 or 3 jobs AND spending my nights and weekends working on creative projects, from the time I graduated college, until the present, in my 39th year. Currently that involves working as a commercial photographer, so not only do I shoot, I also have to take care of running my business, promoting my business, and troubleshooting computers and photo equipment. I also exhibit my fine art photography, so that involves shooting “for fun” in my free time, retouching, uploading images to my web site, but also seeking places to exhibit my work, making prints for shows, and doing research. This involves far more time and work, and requires far more discipline and expertise in many different skills than people who show up to 1 job in an office, 5 days a week.
And do I wash? I’d better, because no client is going to take someone seriously who shows up to a job or art opening looking or speaking like a schlub. Skinny jeans? Fucking Walmart sells skinny jeans now, who cares what people wear?
3. The situation at Kent is a prime example of the turning of the tides in NYC, in that money is the prime concern, and as soon as a neighborhood has reached that level where white, middle class, bourgeosie types want to move in, these phony fire concerns get called in to the NYFD and suddenly artists are “breaking the law” for living in buildings, and in neighborhoods, that no one gave a shit about 10 years ago.
Do any of you really think anyone deserves to be locked out of their home with no warning if they have been obeying the rules of that building and paying their rent?
How’s about we do a safety test of some buildings in your neighborhood and lock you out if there’s some stuff stored in your brownstone basement that’s flammable?
If the hazard is cleaned up they should be allowed to return to their homes. This isn’t the old USSR yet- is it?
Thanks for the life lessons and resumes…
All of you are correct I am a bitter failure and the only pleasure in my life comes from this blog…
Everywhere you go there you are…
So I guess I will put on my asshat and go.
not everyone in there was a trust fund child, jerks… i used to live there – rest assured my poor parents weren’t kickin’ down my rent, and there were PLENTY of self-employed, hard-working artists in that building when i lived there – many of them becoming VERY successful – fashion designers, national geographic photographers, artists with huge frescos in JFK airport, successful whitney shows, published authors with novels and several harpers articles underneath them, etc…
so, jerk, have some compassion – or maybe you’re just bitter.
Clearly GROSS you don’t know what your referring to. Can you get over your random assertion/ obsession that the residents of that got thrown out wear skinny jeans and don’t shower. ???
Are you such an isolated bitter never has been that you can’t see a forced evacuation of a building is a BAD thing ?
Yes, and toxic photo chemicals, maybe you also don’t realize we’ve all moved in to the digital age.
I think it’s time for you to clean up your own sad self, and maybe grow up – your over due on that as well.
Gross…what a drag it must be to be in your early thirties and realize that you have become such a fucking tool. I don’t envy you one bit because you clearly are a lonely, frustrated, “superior” asshat.
Making a living off your bfa and mfa is a long way off from making a living off of your art. You have failed to live up to all your art school dreams. Go fuck yourself.