press
Lovely people who have said lovely things about this project:
Vulture: “The Last of the Great Brooklyn Art Spaces: A User’s Guide“
“Oriana Leckert documents [Brooklyn’s] endangered artistic landscape before it’s too late.”
Publishers Weekly review!
“Visually compelling [and] totally unexpected, even non–New Yorkers will appreciate the eccentricity of Leckert’s tour.”
Flavorwire staff pick!
“Full of beautiful photographs and interviews with the founders, owners, or guardians of these spaces, this book is the perfect road map for exploring Brooklyn this summer: just open it anywhere and go!”
Hyperallergic: “A Documentarian of Brooklyn’s Underground Creative Culture”
“The book reads like a field guide to the underground creative culture of the borough—and like a love letter to it, from one of its biggest appreciators.”
Atlas Obscura: “Brooklyn Spaces: Capturing the Ephemeral and Enduring Spaces That Make Brooklyn Weird”
“Brooklyn has a lot of offbeat spaces to explore, and for that there is Brooklyn Spaces. The online “compendium of Brooklyn culture and creativity” is run by the adventurous Oriana Leckert.”
Motherboard: “Documenting All the Cool Stuff Brooklyn Is Slowly Losing”
“We owe it to the future generations of people complaining about cool shit vanishing in Brooklyn to document all these spaces before they, like their throngs of admirers, evaporate into passing clouds of gentrification or city-approved destruction.”
Laughing Squid: “Brooklyn Spaces: A Compendium of Unique Places in Brooklyn”
“Oriana Leckert started Brooklyn Spaces as a way to profile the ‘unique, weird and fascinating places’ located in Brooklyn, New York.”
Untapped Cities: “5 Quintessential Creative Venues in Brooklyn from New Book Brooklyn Spaces“
“Brooklyn Spaces is a love letter to a type of creative culture that has been thriving in Brooklyn, but is not necessarily distinct to it.”
The L Magazine: “50 Books You’ll Want to Read This Spring & Summer“
“A paean to the borough’s current cultural climate as well as a testament to the fact that, no matter how much rents have spiraled and no matter how far out onto the fringes Brooklyn’s creative class has needed to go, art finds a way.”
Brooklyn Based: “All Tomorrow’s Parties, and Some of Yesterday’s, in One Book“
“Leckert has become the unofficial record keeper of Brooklyn’s creative, and often fleeting, spaces that house parties, art shows, aerialists, collectives and concerts.”
Brokelyn: “Oriana Leckert shows us BK’s coolest spots that are still standing“
“Oriana documents the eccentricity that keeps this place so darn cool.”
Brooklyn Magazine: “Oriana Leckert of Brooklyn Spaces: What’s Happening!”
“Brooklyn Spaces is a place to go to find out anything and everything that’s happening in the Brooklyn DIY/arts/performance/music/creative scene.”
Free Williamsburg: “Brooklyn Spaces: Chronicling Weird Shit Before It Gets Condemned / Gentrified”
“Full of gorgeous photos and in-depth profiles on the history of each space, the site will let you see what you’ve been missing, or maybe even finally figure out the name of that place you stumbled into in a drunken late-night stupor.”
Brooklyn Daily Eagle: “‘Brooklyn Spaces’ compendium reveals diverse array of cultural hot spots“
“[Brooklyn Spaces] presents a vivid slice of life in the borough that has come to be accepted and celebrated as both the incubator and the arbiter of taste.”
Bushwick Daily: “New Book Captures Fleeting Spaces of Brooklyn DIY Culture”
“Oriana truthfully and honestly captured the spirit of these often ephemeral spaces creating a time capsule of Brooklyn DIY culture.”
MUG New York: “Newww.York”
“Brooklyn Spaces channels the energy of the borough by looking at its music venues, galleries, boutiques, collectives, and any of the lesser-known, but essential places that have rocked the borough in the last decade.”
Brooklyn Pulse: “Brooklyn Spaces”
“Oriana Leckert Chronicles Past and Present Underground.”
Greenpointers: “‘Brooklyn Spaces’ Will Show You Where the Fun Is“
“Cultural hipstorian and author Oriana Leckert’s book dips into boat clubs, biology labs, supply stores, art galleries, raves, and collectives of all kinds across the borough.”
Arts in Bushwick: “Oriana Leckert’s Places of the Heart“
“The book takes us inside fascinating post-industrial structures in various states of decay, but its true subject is how these spaces inspire art—a search for the soul that makes each setting sacred.”
Plus weet words from wonderful folks at Blazenfluff, Manhattan Users Guide, Abandoned NYC (“The [50!] places profiled in the book show the authentic, human side of the global phenomenon that is ‘Brooklyn cool’”), and Nonsense NYC (“The book is a surprisingly rare thing, an inventory of a moment in time featuring several beloved Brooklyn venues and DIY spaces that have already disappeared”).