Spaceworks artists still at risk

Update: Spaceworks has announced that artists at its Williamsburg and South Bronx locations can wait until June 15 to move out.

19 below-market-rate studios for artists in Williamsburg and the South Bronx are slated to vanish in May, leaving painters, sculptors, writers, and dancers with the grim task of moving out during a pandemic.

Until recently, more than two dozen artists in Gowanus were in the same boat. On March 31, the city-initiated nonprofit Spaceworks, which has used funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the New York City Council, and private philanthropy to provide subsidized spaces for artists since 2013, quietly announced that it would cease operations in June due to budgetary shortfalls. The impending shutdown drew wider attention in April, however, due to a public campaign mounted by the community-based organization Arts Gowanus on behalf of 28 artists facing eviction at 540 President Street in Brooklyn.

Spaceworks, which leases a portion of the building from PDS Development Corporation, had informed its subtenants that they had to vacate their workspaces by May 25. Arts Gowanus offered to take over Spaceworks’ management contract (or to help negotiate new, individual leases between the artists and the landlord), but PDS, which has not revealed its plans for the soon-to-be-empty space, rebuffed the nonprofit’s attempt to keep the artistic community in place beyond the lifespan of Spaceworks.

Artists, however, spoke out about their reluctance to break quarantine for the sake of an impatient landlord, earning the sympathy of local journalists and the neighborhood’s councilman, Brad Lander. By the third week of April, organized pressure – led by Johnny Thornton, Arts Gowanus’s executive director – had persuaded Spaceworks and PDS to coordinate a stay of execution in Gowanus.

The occupants of studios at 540 President Street will hold onto their workspaces until one month after the expiration of Governor Cuomo’s stay-at-home mandate (New York on PAUSE) – June 15 at the earliest – irrespective of the termination date of Spaceworks’ master lease. Spaceworks also waived rent for the month of May and walked back an earlier warning that artists would lose their possessions if they didn’t pack up in a timely fashion.

While artists in Gowanus are still hoping for a resolution that would allow them to keep their studios on a long-term basis, the negotiated delay has made the prospect of moving out – if necessary – less daunting. No such delay has yet been promised to Spaceworks artists in Williamsburg or the South Bronx.

Spaceworks manages 15 private studios, a community project space, and an exhibition space on the ground floor of 240 East 153rd Street, an affordable housing development – branded Park Avenue Green – in the Bronx neighborhood of Melrose, completed in 2019 by the developer Omni New York LLC. On the second floor of Williamsburgh branch of the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) at 240 Division Avenue, Spaceworks rents out four private studios as well as hourly rehearsal rooms for musicians and dance troupes.

Dance company says goodbye

Milteri Tucker Concepcion, the director of Bombazo Dance Co. at the South Bronx Spaceworks, gave an account of her situation: “We have been in the space for one year and had renewed our contract lease for another year. Just as the coronavirus pandemic hit NYC and the city was preparing to ‘shelter in place,’ I received a call, then followed by an email that Spaceworks was shutting its doors, it would no longer exist, that all artist and organizations needed to vacate in 30 days.”

According to Concepcion, the initial move-out date of May 1 got pushed back to May 25 on account of the COVID-19 outbreak, but Spaceworks has not offered additional relief. “We are trying to communicate with the landlord to see if we can have a bit more time, as we do not feel it’s safe to have a group of people gathered to vacate,” Concepcion related.

Lionel Cruet, another Spaceworks artist in the Bronx, also struggles to imagine moving out under the current circumstances. “As of today I know this would be a complicated task, as most moving services in the city are not available until further notice. If we get closer to the date and we are still in this health crisis, the city will have to make an intervention,” he said.

Omni, the landlord, sent the Star-Revue the following statement: “In early March, Omni was notified of Spaceworks’ intent to vacate the space. While no plans for the space have been made, Omni would like to retain the use and value of the space, ideally by locating a community service provider comparable to Spaceworks to operate the space. Omni welcomes and encourages community service providers who may be interested in taking over this space to reach out for more information by contacting Max Kelner at 646-762-4947, or email [email protected].”

Evictions at Brooklyn Public Library

For public safety, BPL temporarily shuttered all 60 of its branches on March 16, but Spaceworks artists retained access to their portion of the Williamsburgh Library. This access, however, won’t last long: four days after BPL’s closure, Spaceworks told its Williamsburg artists that they, too, would have to vacate their studios by May 25.

“I was absolutely shocked to receive the call that Spaceworks would be closing and that we’d be losing our spaces during an epidemic,” said an artist based at Williamsburgh Library, who asked to remain anonymous. “Just going to the grocery store is a challenge. I’m not sure how to even begin a move out during an epidemic.”

The artist, wondering at Spaceworks’ sudden insolvency, questioned the organization’s staffing decisions (“Were that many people necessary?”) and fiscal management. “We all pay to have these spaces. Although it’s below market value, it’s still a significant amount of money coming in on a monthly basis. Our rents went up 6 percent just this past year.”

BPL, they said, has been no help so far. The second floor of the Williamsburgh branch may continue to serve artists in the future – just not the ones who currently rent studios there, it seems.

“No communication was initiated by BPL,” the artist noted, “but we as individual artists have reached out and explored options of trying to stay and keeping the program going, for the community. The library will be exploring the option to keep the programs going, but after we all leave.”

The artist pointed out the particular frustration of having to vacate BPL premises possibly before BPL resumes operations, which they viewed as a “ridiculous demand,” given that their space would almost certainly would not find another use until after the COVID-19 pause.

The loss of affordable studios perhaps couldn’t have come at a worse moment, with the art market suffering in the economic shutdown. “I’m not sure staying in NYC is an option with the subsidized studio closing and galleries closed indefinitely,” the artist confessed.

According to BPL, the post-Spaceworks fate of the Williamsburgh branch remains up in the air. “The Library has not yet determined how the space will be used going forward, but we expect to do so over the next few months,” said Press Officer Fritzi Bodenheimer.

On March 20, Governor Cuomo announced a 90-day moratorium on commercial and residential evictions in New York State. Courts will not begin to process new evictions until June 20 at the earliest, and it’s illegal in New York for a landlord or a master tenant to remove a tenant or a subtenant forcibly – for instance, by changing the locks or tossing out possessions – without a marshal eviction.

While some Spaceworks artists have considered refusing to vacate their studios until a judge has ordered a formal eviction, they worry that the unusual nature of their subtenancy under Spaceworks might weaken their position in any ensuing battle with the property owner. By law, the Spaceworks artists are not technically subtenants but licensees, having signed license agreements rather than subleases.

On April 28, a representative from Spaceworks declared that the organization is “working towards extended move-out periods in all of our spaces.” As of press time, no deal for an extension had yet taken shape in Williamsburg or the South Bronx.

Previously, Spaceworks operated a facility in Long Island City that closed in 2019, and in 2014, it sought to take over a portion of BPL’s Red Hook branch in order to provide a home for the local ballet school Cora Dance until community opposition canceled the plan. In addition to shutting down facilities in Gowanus, Williamsburg, and the South Bronx, Spaceworks’ closure will end a recent partnership with the Abrons Art Center in Manhattan.