clinton hill – brooklyn spaces

freecandy

oriana on 5 May ’15

[I’ll be counting down to the release of the Brooklyn Spaces book by doing one mini-post per day, sharing teasers of some of the places you’ll find in it.]

neighborhood: clinton hill | space type: art gallery & coworking | active since: 2009 | links: website, facebook, twitter

A few years into its stride, Freecandy has become a malleable space for independent creative individuals to convene and showcase their work. By day it’s used for coworking, with creative types building apps, miximg music, managing bands, and designing streetwear; by night the space morphs into an art gallery, music venue, black-box theatre, or whatever the situation calls for.

all photos by Alix Piorun

Founder Todd Triplett’s goal is for Freecandy to bring all different kinds of people together in what he calls “directed serendipity” to see what develops. Todd, whose grandfather was a jazz musician, believes that art and music have the power to change the world, and he wants Freecandy to carry on the cultural legacy of Bed-Stuy, Clinton Hill, and Ft. Greene. “The vibe of this place, the bones, it’s just so authentic,” Todd says. “It’s exactly what I envisioned when I was moving to New York.”

Want to learn more about Freecandy, and 49 other incredible Brooklyn Spaces? Buy the book!

12-turn-13

oriana on 26 Mar ’14

space type: parties, events | neighborhood: clinton hill | active since: 1998 | links: website, facebook

Art party space 12-turn-13 sits in a huge industrial building dating back to the 1930s, one of only two remaining structures from the MH Renken Dairy complex (preservationists are working to designate the other as a historic landmark). For the last sixteen years—an incredible lifespan in today’s deliriously shifting Brooklyn underground—this beautiful loft has hosted all manner of DJs, gallery shows, and complex performance events, from Wolf + Lamb and Mister Saturday Night dance parties to exotic honey tastings and elaborately themed fêtes.

all photos courtesy of theARTcorps

Read on for plenty of reminiscences and fantastic stories from owner Steve R. about sixteen years of underground Brooklyn brilliance.
[n.b.: this interview took place in September 2013]

brooklyn spaces: This space is just gorgeous. What was it like when you got it?
Steve: Oh, it was an absolute sty. There were these huge hinged industrial windows that weighed about fifty pounds, they had bars on the outside and the inside. There were strips of fluorescent lights hanging from the dropped ceilings, which were curling at the edges from water damage. There were all sorts of wire conduits everywhere, and there was a concrete bunker in the corner that functioned as a bathroom—it consisted of a toilet, about enough space for a toilet paper roll, and on the outside, literally hanging off its pipe, a sink that didn’t work. That was it.

brooklyn spaces: So it was love at first sight?
Steve: Well, I’d looked at about sixty different places, from Sunset Park to Greenpoint—leaving out Williamsburg, because I knew I didn’t want to go there.
brooklyn spaces: Even in 1998 you didn’t want to go to Williamsburg?
Steve: Well, I was living in the East Village at the time, and an Urban Outfitters had just moved in across the street from me. I knew what was going to happen in Williamsburg, and I just couldn’t do that again. Anyway, I had a car at the time, so I drove here, and when I walked in, this place was so disgusting, but I could see the beams, the wood floors, the perfect lighting, I knew it had the bones. So I immediately said, “Yes, I’ll take it!” And then I drove back to the East Village and thought, “Oh god, is there a subway? Is there any food?” I had no idea. So I had to come back and walk the neighborhood. Luckily there was a post office, a supermarket, a few amenities. So yes, love at first sight, and then a lot of work. We ripped out the drop ceiling and exposed all these beams—that took about nine months on a twelve-foot ladder, scraping it all by hand with a little brush. And then carpenters, electricians, plumbers; we basically built everything from scratch.

brooklyn spaces: And the goal was always to make a living space where you could throw parties?
Steve: Yes. My East Village apartment was 600 square feet, and I had parties there for years. My scene was DJs and downtown artists, performers, and fashion people. We did First Friday salons every month, where people would come over and share what they did, creatively. It grew to the point where we had a keg in the bathtub and people lined up and down the stairs smoking cigarettes until 4 o’clock in the morning, and I just realized my neighbors hated me and I had to move.

SPANK party, photo by Jemma Nelson

brooklyn spaces: You had no resistance to coming to Brooklyn?
Steve: There was only Brooklyn. Where else could we go?
brooklyn spaces: What about your guests—was there resistance for them to come to Brooklyn?
Steve: Oh god, yes. This is back in the day when we had to actually print invitations and handwrite the addresses and put them in the mail. People didn’t even know about the G; back then we called it the Ghost Train. One friend came out for a salon here and didn’t have my phone number; he was banging on the door but we didn’t hear him, and he went back home and that was the end of our friendship. He was so upset about how far he’d had to come! Nowadays of course it’s no big deal, but then? Yeah, it was tough.

Blue Dinner Party

brooklyn spaces: What was the neighborhood like?
Steve: Well, Myrtle Avenue was called Murder Ave. There was a double homicide right up the block, there was a brothel across the street; once they threw a television out a fourth-floor window—what a spectacular crash. There were no gays, not many white kids. But what I loved about it was that it was Brooklyn, it felt so real to me. And I knew all my neighbors, they would all come to my parties. Now everybody looks alike and I hardly know any of them.

brooklyn spaces: How has it been, watching that change?
Steve: Well, I can actually eat in my neighborhood now. I can buy coconut ice cream at 4 in the morning, and there are boutiques and a yoga studio; but now I have to be concerned about how much noise I make. So it’s not the same but the neighborhood has retained a lot of its character, and I think it’s changing with some integrity. But we’ll see how it goes.

Midnight Magic

brooklyn spaces: Let’s talk about the parties. Tell me about some great ones or awful ones or really memorable ones.
Steve: Oh my, sixteen years. Let’s see. In probably 1999 we threw a series of parties called “b_list.” The price to get in was $3—the graffiti tag “$3 too much” is still in my hallway. We had breakdancers spinning on cardboard boxes, go-go dancers, the DJ atop the booth with his pants around his ankles; people were having sex in the bathroom, sex in the water-heater closet, sex in the corner—it was crazy. Someone shat on my couch in the supposedly locked storage area.

Halloween party

brooklyn spaces: Wow. Were all the parties that intense?
Steve: No, no, that was something of an anomaly. When I moved in here it was to make a playground for a variety of artists, and every party had basically two criteria: it had to be multi-disciplinary, and it had to change the space, so that every time you walked in here you went “Ooh, it’s totally different!” We did a series of “Art Inspired By Nature” parties that were very involved: from 6 to 9 it was a proper art gallery, from 9 to 11 there were performances, and then the lights would go down, the DJs would start, and, you know, my parents and all the neighborhood kids would vacate and it would turn into a real party. Those parties were so much effort! First we curated about 30 artists around a nature theme, and then I found an environmental nonprofit partner—for one about water, we partnered with Riverkeeper and they did a lecture for us on the New York Watershed; we also went to the Coney Island Aquarium and got a behind-the-scenes tour of feeding the sharks and propagating jellyfish. For another, about air, we partnered with Earthpledge. So it was about six months of work and planning leading up to a one-night event, and it was like BOOM, crescendo! And then massive depression afterward. It became very difficult to maintain that momentum.

Art Inspired By Nature party

brooklyn spaces: How did you keep from totally wearing yourself out?
Steve: Well, around 2005 I met the Wolf + Lamb guys and started throwing parties with them, which was much easier: all I had to do was set up and clean the space. They had a following, so they’d promote to their people, I’d promote to my people, and everyone would come. There was suddenly this thing called email, which made it all so much easier! So I’ve been doing mostly DJ parties ever since then. We’ve been doing the Mister Saturday Night parties for about five years now, with some Mister Sunday parties in the winter months. They’re the most magical parties, full of a diverse group of people, and even children. We really deck out the space with fun décor and art installations; we’ve been partnering with Jeffrey Ralston, who does amazing inflatables that make everyone smile.

Mister Sunday party

brooklyn spaces: So DJ parties became your main focus.
Steve: Yes, but I do still host smaller, more intimate and creative salons. We’ve had supper clubs and wine tastings and salsa dancing lessons and a jazz concert. Oh, and one of my favorite recent parties was for my birthday, a Bee-Day Party, because I’m now a beekeeper. We had flowers everywhere, there was a honey tasting, we had a little photo booth with Astroturf, a real log, a flower-ringed arbor, sky, clouds, and a kite. Jeff did these gigantic nine-foot inflatable flowers. It was wonderful.

Mister Saturday Night

brooklyn spaces: Tell me about one more really memorable party, where everything just worked perfectly.
Steve: A few years ago we did one called “Dante’s Inferno” in collaboration with the theatre collective Augenblick. It started in the city and went through the Nine Circles of Hell on the way here. The first and second were in Union Square, the third was on the L train platform, the fourth and fifth were in the Lorimer station, the sixth was on the G train at the Classon stop, and then on down the hill. When people approached 12-turn-13, we had all these performers out on the street: fire throwers and twirlers and a nine-foot monster. And then you came inside and the entire space was decorated to be Hell. People walked in through a green screen, and their images were projected in flames elsewhere in the space. It was incredible.

Dante's Inferno party

brooklyn spaces: Having come from the East Village and been here for so long, what do you think is the influence of Brooklyn on 12-turn-13—or the influence of 12-turn-13 on Brooklyn?
Steve: I came to Brooklyn at the right time. I think at this point, finding a space like this, it’s kind of too late unless you have a lot of money or you’re venturing much farther out. But I think there are still pockets all around. I have friends in the Rockaways who bought the Playland Motel, which is an amazing space, and I know there’s the whole industrial complex in Sunset Park that’s going to explode. There’s still that pioneering spirit, and there’s still space if you look for it. During the Red Bull Music Academy, Justin [Carter, of Mister Saturday Night] and I went out to Knockdown Center, and walking into that courtyard, seeing that massive building, I felt like it was 1996 again, this feeling of discovering something new and different and grand and ambitious and magnificent.

Salon Selects Supper Club

brooklyn spaces: Knockdown Center is one of my absolute favorite new spaces.
Steve: Architecturally, it’s astounding. It reminded me of the Lunatarium, this incredible space that was in Dumbo in the 2000s [ed note: check out Jeff Stark’s great piece on the closing of the Lunatarium], or the Fake Shop in Williamsburg, which was a huge warehouse where they had amazing inflatable installations and dark sensory-deprived crawl-space mazes you went through on your hands and knees. Knockdown Center for me was like, “Wow. It’s still happening.” There are always people who want to have an adventure, that craving for discovery. 12-turn-13 is the same, it’s a destination. You need to want to come here, but we’re going to throw such a good party that it will be worth the journey. At least, we hope it will.

***

Like this? Read about more underground party spaces: Rubulad, Gemini & Scorpio, Red Lotus Room, The Lab, Egg & Dart Club, Gowanus Ballroom, Newsonic

broken angel

oriana on 15 Mar ’13

neighborhood: clinton hill | space type: living space, maker | active since: 1979 | links: facebook, flickr

This article was written for Hyperallergic. See the original here.

Most of the coverage you’ll find about the Broken Angel, a handmade architectural marvel in Clinton Hill, begins the story in 2006, when there was a small fire that started all the trouble. That’s the year the tale switches from one about brilliant bohemian artists building their crazy dreamhouse to one about an eccentric old man overwhelmed by legal troubles, shady business partners, and the strangling bureaucracy of the city.

Before I delve into a little history of this incredible space, here’s the time-sensitive part: there’s a block party tonight to say farewell to the Broken Angel, which was originally organized as a small, ten-person gathering but has ballooned to an enormous, two-part spectacle, with over 900 people planning to attend. The festivities begin outside the house itself (4–6 Downing St.) for a family-friendly fête, and will then move to the Irondale Center for a fundraiser turned Brooklyn underground extravaganza, filled to the brim with dancers and performers and tall bikes and DJs and many, many surprises.

And now please read on to learn more about the mad genius whose work is being celebrated.

Arthur Wood has been likened to an American Gaudí. The Broken Angel has been compared to LA’s Watts Towers and Austin’s Cathedral of Junk. Borough President Marty Markowitz called it “a Rubik’s Cube of a spaceship.” It’s been termed vernacular architecture, folk art, outsider art, and—naturally, by some—a frightening eyesore. In its heyday, the Brooklyn Angel was surely the most strikingly unique sculptural works in all of New York. Tragically, much of it has been dismantled in the past decade, and what’s left is not likely to last much longer.

Arthur Wood (who is now 84) and his wife Cynthia (who passed away in 2010) bought the former Brooklyn Trolley headquarters at a city auction in 1979. They paid a mere $2,000 for the four-story, 10,000-square-foot building. And then they began to turn it into art.

Cynthia & Arthur in 2005

According to Shannon Kerner, a close friend of Arthur’s, the Woods began by tearing out the walls and floors and creating many different-sized rooms, some four sweeping stories high, others only five feet. The main staircase was a series of ladders and bridges. Most of the wood and other materials used were salvaged from the streets and garbage dumps, and the space was filled with handmade stained-glass windows Cynthia created from found glass and bottles. In the basement Arthur built a hot tub with a waterfall. And the best-known element of the Broken Angel was on the roof: the Woods constructed a spectacular forty-foot wood-and-glass sculpture on a mirrored platform, which made the whole structure seem to be floating in the clouds.

Shannon describes the rooftop sculpture:

The roof structure branched into two towers. The front one had a huge camera obscura which gave a 360º view of the neighborhood (seven flights up!). You could see blocks and blocks in great detail on a huge white linoleum table scavenged from the street. There was a sweet wooden deck up there too, for stargazing (Arthur loves inventing star-gazing equipment) or hanging out or making art. The back tower was a cool sculpture; you couldn’t hang out on it so much, but you could tangle yourself in its branches (I use the term “branches” metaphorically). In the back there was also another deck that was all stucco, it was like being in the Southwest U.S. The house was an amalgam of all kinds of amazing environments!

Brandon Stanton from Humans of New York, who interviewed Arthur in 2011, said, “Arthur’s sparkling ideas were built with other people’s trash. The concepts were towering and glistening. The realities were made of plywood.” The Woods spent decades creating their masterpiece, finishing major construction in 2002. On their son Chris’ Flickr page (from which all the photos in this post are taken), he said his parents “creat[ed] a home which brought mystery, magic and magnificence to a small cul-de-sac in Brooklyn.” The Village Voice deemed it the “Best Urban Folly” of 2001. In 2002 the New York Times wrote: “Depending on the angle, Broken Angel may resemble a blimp impaled on a church or a laboratory from which some mad scientist might launch a pedal-driven flying machine.” In 2004, Michel Gondry used the Broken Angel as the backdrop for Dave Chappelle’s Block Party. It represents the kind of fantastic treasure that revitalizes your excitement about your neighborhood, that renews your faith in art triumphing over everything—up to and including reason.

And then in 2006 there was a fire. It was small, on one of the top turrets. There was minimal damage and no one was hurt, but that was the point when things began to go downhill. The firefighters on the scene deemed the building unsafe to enter, and the Department of Buildings was notified. They immediately ruled the place unfit for occupancy and evicted the Woods, who were arrested a few days later when they refused to leave. To bring the building up to code—including tearing down the forty feet of additional structure on the roof—would cost around $3 million.

The community rallied around the Woods, including Pratt architecture professor Brent M. Porter, who, along with seven of his students, tried to prove that the building was, in fact, structurally sound. When that didn’t work, the Woods partnered with real estate developer Shahn Andersen to bring it up to code and convert it into condos and art studios. This was a hopeful moment, where it seemed that Arthur’s full vision for the Broken Angel would finally be realized, saving the fantastical space and even opening it up to artists and the community.

On Brownstoner, a commenter named phyllyslim recently talked about having considered joining the project, and the plans Arthur had for it:

The building was [going to be] transformed into a “museum of light” as he termed it… There was to be a parabolic dish in the cellar where light from a prism in the then existing cupola would be directed… There was to be the “cathedral of light” in the front addition where schoolchildren would come to play with interactive exhibits in light, and much more.

In addition, Brownstoner reported at the time that Arthur planned to cap it all off by creating a huge whale out of an old helicopter and hanging it from the building.

Arthur's blueprint for the finished project

After the fire, the Chris Woods wrote, “Many of you wonder what the hell my parents are doing with that building. They have always been building an outline of a dream.” And sadly, as with most such spectacularly unlikely dreams, this one was not to be. There followed three years of complicated legal and financial troubles, with loans defaulted on, trusts broken, promises unkept, and money gone missing. Shahn and Arthur went from collaborators to litigious enemies, and the property was foreclosed upon by the lender, Madison Realty Capital, in 2009. By then Broken Angel had been mostly gutted, the majority of its superbly unique elements removed. Shortly thereafter, in 2010, Cynthia lost her long battle with cancer. Arthur has been in and out of the building ever since.

Many feel that Arthur has been unfairly treated by the city and its emissaries. Arthur himself believes the Department of Buildings started the fire in order to come in and condemn the building. In 2007, Brownstoner noted “the intense level of scrutiny and apparent lack of straight dealing [Arthur and Shahn] received from both DOB and the courts,” and Chris wrote: “The department of Buildings and the City of New York should drop their campaign of harassment and recognize that Brooklyn wants the building that Arthur Wood envisioned, not another boring box of bricks. Why is our building under such scrutiny while other buildings in NY have actually collapsed?”

And the fight to goes on. Says Shannon, “This type of structure belongs in New York, in Brooklyn. We need places like this! Instead of tearing it down the city should have worked with him to preserve it, make it safe to their standards, sure, but make it better.” Shalin Sculpham, another friend of Arthur’s, told the New York Daily News, “It’s one of the weirdest, most beautiful buildings in New York—and his life’s work. And it’s being taken away.”

Now the city has given Arthur one more final notice, so barring another stay of execution, March 30th, 2013 will be Arthur’s last day in his home of nearly thirty years. Shannon says they chose to have a block party to give people a chance to say farewell to Broken Angel, “to wish Arthur well and maybe sing him a song or dance him a dance or do something to show their support of the situation. They could bring all their favorite memories of the space, shake his hand, share some cookies…” Chris has said that they would like to put together a time capsule to hide in the building, so people can bring something small to contribute to that. Ever hopeful, friends have put out an open call for (pro bono) legal help (contact brokenangelbk@gmail.com to get involved!), and a donation page has been set up, in the hopes of raising $50,000 to keep on fighting.

the Woods' stove

So this could really be the end of Broken Angel, but people have been saying that for nearly a decade—if not longer. Arthur is old now, and tired, but he’s still feisty, and he has support from many different corners. And after all, for someone who created the miraculous Broken Angel out of salvaged bottles and boards, would it be so unreasonable to hope for a few more years to keep creating miracles within it?

***

Like this? Read about more historic buildings: Brooklyn Lyceum, Brooklyn Historical Society, Bushwick Schoolhouse, Breuckelen Distilling Co., South Oxford Space, Trinity Project