Steve Silver stands inside his 5,000-square-foot loft in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. Silver, a painter, moved into the loft in 1979.
They used to be printing shops, garment factories and flophouses. Now they’re some of the coolest artist spaces you’ll ever see.
These unique, expansive lofts, rarely seen by the public, are all over New York City.
For decades, they’ve been occupied by painters, sculptors and other artists who moved in when manufacturers started leaving the city in the second half of the 20th century.
“When people think of New York City as a cultural epicenter, these are the artists that they’re envisioning,” said Joshua Charow, a photographer and filmmaker who has spent the past few years documenting the artists and their studios for his book “Loft Law: The Last of New York City’s Original Artist Lofts.”
JG Thirlwell’s loft in Brooklyn’s Dumbo neighborhood doubles as his home recording studio. “Loft living is not for everyone,” he told Charow. “You’re responsible for everything in here, and not everyone wants a life like that.”
A cat rests inside the Tribeca loft of Ken and Flo Jacobs, experimental filmmakers who moved into the space in 1965. At the time, the monthly rent for the 2,000-square-foot loft was just $70.
For the first half of the 20th century, New York City was a major manufacturing center. Factories were all over, producing everything from ice cream to torpedoes.
But when companies started finding it profitable to move their operations to other parts of the country and the world, many buildings were abandoned. By the 1960s and ‘70s, industrial neighborhoods, including those we now know as SoHo and Tribeca in Lower Manhattan, were largely deserted.
Landlords were desperate to find tenants. A big problem, however, was that the buildings were not zoned for residential use. Many of them didn’t have kitchens or showers, or even electricity or heat.
“The only people that would rent the space were artists,” Charow said. “And that’s because (the buildings) had tall ceilings, so they could make big work. They had big windows to let in lots of light. The spaces were completely raw, in many circ*mstances.”
Artists would move into the empty factories and warehouses and make them more livable spaces. It was technically illegal, of course, but everyone was benefiting and the once-abandoned neighborhoods started to thrive again.
By the end of the ’70s, however, loft living had become quite fashionable and some landlords were looking to cash in, pushing out the artists for a wealthier clientele.
The artists pushed back, and in 1982 state lawmakers enacted Article 7-C of the New York Multiple Dwelling Law, which is commonly known as the 1982 Loft Law. This legislation gave protection and rent stabilization to people who had been living in these spaces. It also required landlords to bring the units up to residential code.
When the law was enacted, Charow says in his book, there were tens of thousands of artists living in lofts across the city. Now just a few hundred remain.
Noah Jemison moved to his Williamsburg loft in 1980. He remembers his neighborhood not having as much traffic as it does now. “You could walk down the streets and see nobody,” he told Charow. “It was a place where you could hear yourself think. It was perfect for artists.”
A scan of a 1913 blueprint shows one of the Manhattan buildings Charow photographed. New York City was a major manufacturing center for the first half of the 20th century.
Painter Betsy Kaufman walks inside her Tribeca loft. She uses the front half as her studio. It still has its original wooden floors.
Legislation enacted in 1982 allowed loft residents in New York to establish legal residence and have their living spaces brought up to code. It also stabilized their rent and protected them from eviction.
Charow wanted to document these artists — and their extraordinary lofts — before their numbers dwindled even more. He found a map of the remaining protected buildings and went door to door to see whether their tenants would be willing to share their story with him.
He was often rejected at first. But over time, more doors started to open up as people he met would introduce him to others.
Over the past three years, Charow has photographed 75 artists — 30 of whom are in his book.
“My life has been greatly enriched by meeting some of these artists and learning about their lives and their stories,” Charow said. “It’s had a big impact on just my life, and I can’t imagine how much of an impact this group of people has had on the city as a whole.”
Ellen Christine makes new hats and restores old ones. She’s one of the last milliners in New York City. “In the 1930s, you could walk down any street, and there would be at least 30 milliners,” she said. “It was just (that) everybody wore hats, you see… So they needed new ones all the time.”
Curtis Mitchell remembers when he first walked into his loft in the Dumbo neighborhood of Brooklyn. The building used to be an ice cream factory. “It looked just like a dream,” he said. “To me, it still is a dream. It’s a fantastic place. Cold as hell in the winter and hot as hell in the summer, but I don’t care.”
One of Charow’s favorite spaces was the Bowery loft of Carmen Cicero, who is now 97 years old but moves with the energy of someone much younger, Charow said. Cicero lives in the loft with his wife, the art historian Mary Abell. Filling the space are hundreds of Cicero’s paintings, some bigger than he is.
“When you dream of what a painter in their loft in New York would be like, it’s Carmen,” Charow said. “And he’s filled with incredible stories. He has such phenomenal stories of his time as an artist here.”
Cicero’s work can be found in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.
He told Charow the story of how he got his big break: “I had a lot of friends who thought I was a really remarkable painter. One day, they said, ‘Carmen, you’re going to a gallery.’ And they had two guys grab my feet, and two guys grab my arms — they threw me in the car and said, ‘We’re going.’ We went to four or five galleries, and almost every one of them wanted my work — I was lucky.”
Charow says it has been a thrill to meet these artists and listen to their stories.
“The spaces are beautiful and interesting and historic in their own ways. But without the artists, these spaces lose the significance and the interest to me,” he said. “The artists are the ones who are giving the spaces meaning. Their decades of life and working there is what makes these spaces sort of a sacred thing.”
Through June 29, Charow’s photos are being exhibited at Westwood Gallery NYC, alongside the art of many of the people he photographed.
“I’m really excited that people get to see the paintings and sculptures and and see where they’re made,” he said.
Even though the book is already published, Charow’s project will continue. After he began sharing his photos and videos, more artists started reaching out to him so that they could tell their story.
He now has a list of artists to photograph over the next few months.
“This isn’t just a thing of New York’s past. This is the present,” Charow said. “You can walk down the street and look at a window and you might see (an artist), and they’re still working and they’re still making their paintings and sculptures.
“I think it’s a beautiful part of our city, that this exists. It took a lot of resilience and ingenuity to stay in these spaces.”
Joshua Charow’s book, “Loft Law: The Last of New York City’s Original Artist Lofts,” is published by Damiani Books. The exhibition at Westwood Gallery NYC is taking place through July 13.
