One of my favorite things about this project is how often it surprises me. And holy shit was it a surprise walking into Film Biz Recycling, an enormous basement warehouse in Gowanus in between the Ger-Nis Culinary & Herb Center and the Textile Arts Center, just bursting with castoffs from movies, television, and commercial shoots.

photo by me

And I’m not just talking about plastic display food and costume jewelry and faux brick walling (although there’s plenty of those); there’s also racks of designer clothing and shoes, row upon row of high-end leather couches and brass lamps, plus headboards and telephone booths and bicycles and filing cabinets. And those are just the big items; there’s also aisles of small stuff, from books to toasters to street signs to toys.

all photos by Maximus Comissar unless noted

What’s it all for? Well, for you, for whatever you can think to do with it, whether it’s building out your loft or decorating for a themed party. Eva, the founder, and her crew collect everything the film biz can’t use, and then they separate it into things to sell, things to deconstruct and reuse, and things to donate. They work with dozens of charities, including Blissful Bedrooms, Recycle-a-Bicycle, Room to Grow, Fertile Grounds, and Brooklyn Greenway Initiative, sending clothing to shelters, baby items to single mothers, e-waste to recycling centers, and building materials to reuse shops. In the three years it’s been open, Film Biz Recycling has diverted 180 tons of stuff from landfills. And they’re just getting started! It’s a space you’ve really got to see, and a cause that is so worth supporting, with your time (they love volunteers!), your money (don’t you need a new armchair?), and your ideas. Get over there! But first, check out my interview with Eva.

brooklyn spaces: What made you get into all this?
Eva: I worked in the film business for fifteen years, and I just spent so much time trying to find homes for all the leftover materials. I started a Google Group in 2007 to get all the art departments talking to one another, figuring out how to exchange materials. But the stuff needed a place to go, so in 2009 I got a tiny space in Long Island City. I used my savings for the deposit; it was totally underfunded, which was fine, that’s what ecopreneurs are famous for. But it turned out we had to grow or die, so I started looking for a new space. When I found this one—11,000 square feet!—I said, “We’ll be here or nowhere.” So we did an emergency fundraiser and raised $20,000 in two weeks, everything from $10 from a production assistant to $1,000 from Bridge Props, another prop house. We were weeping from the support. So we raised the money, signed the deposit, and got the hell out of Long Island City.

brooklyn spaces: Are you happy in Gowanus?
Eva: We love it! It’s like a perfect metaphor. We’re in between Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, which are both gentrified and pretty wealthy; and then there’s this sort of ugly center, this butt crack in between those two lovely white cheeks. It’s so dirty here, but the people who love it really love it. One of the first things I did when we got here was start reaching out to anybody who’s trying to make Gowanus a better place, like Gowanus Canal Conservancy. I said, “Hey, we have materials, and we’re going to give them to you for free. Come down and see what you want.” Then I started finding local charities. CHIPS, a men’s shelter, is down the street, as is Camba Women’s Shelter. Sean Casey Animal Shelter is up the road.

brooklyn spaces: Are all the charities you work with so close?
Eva: No, they’re all over. Materials for the Arts picks up from us once a month, and Build It Green. Wearable Collections picks up clothing; they send what’s usable to South America and recycle the rest. Our mission is sort of a triple bottom line: people, profit, and planet. People are saving money, and these rich companies aren’t spending $900 a dumpster for all this usable stuff to just be tossed. It’s cheaper to donate it. It’s never not been that way.

brooklyn spaces: Okay, take me through all the different components of the space.
Eva: Well, first we have the Re-Workshop. We want this to be a community hub, a place for groups to meet and talk to one another. We have a Re-Gallery, to show the works of our featured artists, who have a workshop in the back. Right now it’s Dog Tag Designs. We’ve got our offices in the back, and a kitchen, and even an underground terrace, where they used to store the coal to heat the building. It’s our break room and spraypaint area and impromptu garden center—I’ve made some planters out of toilets that Build It Green refused, and we’re growing basil and things.

photo by Alix Piorun

brooklyn spaces: Now tell me about what you’ve got for sale.
Eva: Let me just give you a couple of examples. There’s a set of brand new white leather couches that cost $3,700 new; the whole batch is $1,200 here. There’s a roll of rubber flooring, which costs $1,000 at RoseBrand, that we’re selling for $200. A gorgeous vintage lamp that was $2,300 new is $400 here. There’s a couple of crazy old phone booths that we just sold to Brooklyn Creative League to use in their coworking spaces. And that’s just the huge stuff. We also have a Small Boxes section. We have things like Bodega in a Box, Birthday Party in a Box, Hospital in a Box—these are usable items, not just props. We have salt and pepper shakers, lunch trays, trophy cups, petri dishes, candles, maps, a whole box of creepy clowns.

brooklyn spaces: So is everything for sale?
Eva: Not everything; we also have a rental-only section for items that are specific to the industry. Like, imagine a Downy commercial, with the mom looking into the dryer at her laundry, or a Sunny-D commercial, with the kid looking into the fridge. How do you get those shots? You cut a hole in the back of the dryer or fridge. And what did we do in the goddamn stupid industry forever? Bought a new one every single time. So now at Film Biz Recycling we rent them out.

brooklyn spaces: Have you found anything that you were just stumped about how to repurpose or recycle or resell?
Eva: Theatrical flats. They’re huge, they’re made with lauan—a rainforest material from the Philippines—and they get used once and tossed. But I’ve been thinking about remaking them into composting bins. Our composting company is Vokashi, and I’m going to see if they could use something like that. There’s a solution for everything.

brooklyn spaces: Do you want to export the Film Biz Recycling model to other cities, like LA?
Eva: Well yeah, but you know what? Brad Pitt needs to write me a check. I’m not doing it from the ground up again. But I really do want to fix the film industry. I don’t want to go to a movie and know that everything on the screen is in a landfill now. There’s a midcentury credenza I had to throw away once that haunts me to this day. That thing survived so many decades, made it to our set, and, because somebody flaked on Craigslist, was put into a dumpster and is dead now. That’s not okay with me. Film Biz Recycling isn’t the last resort; we’re the only resort.

brooklyn spaces: And it doesn’t just benefit the film industry.
Eva: The industry is only 10% of our revenue. This is stuff that anyone can use, and I just want to get the word out, so people will. It’s starting to work; Film Biz Recycling is being featured on a new Discovery show called Dirty Money. Eco Brooklyn just wrote a post on us; they redo brownstones sustainably, and they bought some materials from us, which is just what we want. I mean, it’s easy to sell a couch; it’s hard to sell a piece of wood. Anyone who’s redoing their apartment or building out their loft should come here, there are so many possibilities. You could use four theatrical flats to make a platform for your bed or your band or whatever. Trim it with some carpet squares or curtains, it’s beautiful. Anything you can think of.

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Like this? Read about more community spaces: Books Through Bars, Trees Not Trash, Bushwick City Farms, Time’s Up, Brooklyn Free Store, Trinity Project, Boswyck Farms

Even though I live about ten minutes away from them, I’d never heard of Werdink Screenprinting Boutique or Ninja Pyrate. And maybe you haven’t either—but believe me, that’s going to change. They’ve got  an amazing hybrid space, encompassing a high-end screenprinting studio, a boutique shop selling apparel and skateboards (all printed onsite), a multipurpose event space with a rubber floor and an aerial rig, a DJ setup, and a recording studio in a pirate ship. A pirate ship. And they’re really eager to open the space up to the community, to see what people can do with it.

Who are these amazing people? Matthew is the Werdink screenprinter, and his sister Krisstina and her boyfriend Jeff are still figuring out more amazing ways to use the Ninja Pyrate space. Plus they’re all well connected to the crazy Brooklyn creatives: Werdink did a screenprinting truck for the first three Lost Horizon Night Markets and shares tips with Bushwick Print Lab; Krisstina pals around with one of the girls from House of Yes and Lady Circus who started Make Fun; their space is literally downstairs from Shea Stadium.

Scroll down to hear more from these awesome people!
[all photos in this post by Alix Piorun]

brooklyn spaces: Okay, tell me about Werdink.
Matthew: It’s a screenprinting studio and retail shop, based on high-end development for independent fashion and artists. I work with people who are looking to broaden their horizons, make their stuff bigger. I take my time with my clientele, and I build relationships with them and bond with them and become part of their creative process. I’ve been doing this for years, and I do a wide range of printmaking, so I have a lot to offer. It’s not just making t-shirts; I also do tip-to-tail skateboard printing, and lots of other things. I spent a period of my life working with high-end, bigger names and brands, and I want to be able to give more independent people that same experience.

brooklyn spaces: Who are some people you’re really excited to be working with?
Matthew: My friend Ian Hurst, he has a company called 333Theory, and we’ve been working together for three years now, developing his line. Right now we’re making a bunch of t-shirts, but the t-shirts are a side project for his graphic novels, which are coming out later. There’s Connie Wang, from Iconartistry, who I got to know through Ad Hoc Art. She worked with me here for a few years and has since moved on to start her own print studio. There’s Hannah, she interns here, she’s started a brand called Helplessly Happy. There’s Hull, they’re a metal band, they were actually my first intense project in this space. A lot of those guys work at the Anchored Inn around the corner—we love that place, it’s awesome, everybody should go there and drink. Our friend Tara McManus has a company called 3rd Earth Designs, she has some stuff in my boutique and is always expanding her line. It’s hard to pick favorites, I love everyone I work with.

brooklyn spaces: Okay, so let’s switch to Ninja Pyrate. You guys are doing a bunch of different things in here, right?
Jeff: Yeah, we have a lot of interesting hobbies, so we’re trying to do as much as we can. We want to do different yoga classes, like dubstep yoga, costume yoga, pirate yoga. We have a friend who wants to teach capoeira, and we have an aerial rig. On top of that, we have a lot of friends who spin fire, so we’re going to do some poi and spinning classes, and we’re working on making new kinds of fire-spinning tools.
Krisstina: And also stuff like craft nights, clothing swaps with live screenprinting, skill-building workshops, movie nights.
Matthew: We did a release party for a book I helped work on, Gutterfish, with some people reading poetry and a couple of DJs. We’re also planning to put in a little tea and coffee bar.
Jeff: And the space isn’t just for us. We’re going to have an open house soon, because I want to get people imagining, coming up with ways they could use the space.
Matthew: We’re starting to finish up the projects on the inside, so now I’m thinking about the outside. I want to do a party to get some graffiti up on the wall outside.
brooklyn spaces: The landlords don’t mind?
Matthew: The landlords are so cool! I walk over there and I’m like, “Hey, I know you just spent thousands of dollars putting in this new sidewalk last year, but is it cool if I have the city come tear it up and put in some trees?” And they’re like, “It’s you’re place, do whatever you want. You want trees, get some trees.”

brooklyn spaces: Whose is the recording studio? Is that Ninja Pyrate?
Krisstina: Yeah, I do music recording. And our band, Yar, uses it.
brooklyn spaces: And why a pirate ship?
Krisstina: The pirate ship is all found wood. I found it in the hallway of my apartment. I almost walked past it, because, you know, bedbugs. But then I was like, “Wait a minute! I’m a pirate, those are skeletons, this was meant to be.” I called Jeff and said, “Honey, I got you a present from the garbage.”
Jeff: It was the best present I’ve ever gotten.
Matthew: About 80 percent of this place was built with recycled materials. Everything in the boutique is reused. Build It Green is freaking rad. I can’t go there without wanting to spend hundreds of dollars.
Jeff: Krisstina really wanted a playground floor, and I was like “We’re never going to find that.”
Krisstina: And then one of the times we were at Build It Green, I was like “You wouldn’t happen to have rubber flooring here, would you?” And they totally did. We had to dig it out from under the snow in the back parking lot. It was filthy.

brooklyn spaces: Do you think places like this are what’s making Brooklyn what it is right now? Or is Brooklyn like this, and people come and find their place here?
Matthew: That’s a good question. I think it’s a bit of both. As soon as I came to this neighborhood, I was like, “This is where I belong.” I never want to leave Brooklyn.
Krisstina: In Brooklyn there are so many creative people who are really motivated, and who all want to share tips and ideas. It helps to pool your resources; you never know how far you can go when you do that. Space is rare in New York, and expensive, so people have to come together to make it work. And people in the Bushwick area are so supportive. People make an effort to check out what you’re doing and help you with it.
Jeff: I love our friends in Brooklyn, and even people who don’t have this sort of space know we’re here, so if they need somewhere to spread out and do something, they can come to us. We’ve got a lot of creative friends who need more space to be loud, and this is a place they can do that. We’re just trying to help people get together and do things.

Like this? Read about more art & event spaces: Gowanus Ballroom, Arch P&D, Hive NYC, Big Sky Works, Egg & Dart Club