chicken hut

[I’m 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. This is the last one—the book is out tomorrow!]

neighborhood: bed-stuy | space type: living space | active since: 2000 | links: n/a

In a Brooklyn that gets more sanitized every day, there are still a few wild holdouts, and the Chicken Hut is one of the last men standing. “This is our reckless abandon studio,” says Greg H., who started the space with fellow woodworker JPL in the attic of what was then a working feather-processing factory. “It’s our home and the place where we’ve done every crazy fucking thing we’ve ever thought of.”

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Chicken Hut bedroom [pic by Alix Piorun]

For fifteen years the Hut has been home to a revolving cast of more than 80 artists, builders, and renegade makers, from puppeteers to sculptors to luthiers. The space serves as an archive of their creations: robotic aliens, giant rubber sea creatures, and papier-mâché animal heads. Over the years the space has hosted art salons and open studios, as well as fundraisers for fellow artists, like Swoon and the Swimming Cities crew. And then there are the bikes. Chicken Hut is the unofficial clubhouse for the New York chapter of the mutant-bike-building group Black Label Bike Club. They’re also responsible for the annual freak-bike bacchanal Bike Kill, one of the craziest street parties of the year since 2002.

Chicken Hut founder Greg H. at Bike Kill 2014 [pic by Alix Piorun]

Chicken Hut founder Greg H. at Bike Kill 2014 [pic by Alix Piorun]

The Hut is also notorious for its parties—the crew throws a half-dozen jubilantly anarchic bashes each year, and each event contains many worlds: a dance floor helmed by housemate DJ Dirtyfinger here, a thrash metal band playing over there, a dirty marionette show down the hall, and a barbecue on the roof—with some 600 people bouncing back and forth among them.

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Filthy Savage plays a wild party [pic by Walter Wlodarczyk]

The Chicken Hut is one of the longest-running underground outposts left in Brooklyn, a boisterous patched-together family that feels increasingly out of place amid the neighborhood’s myriad new condos and buttoned-up populous. The residents are currently in loft-law proceedings, and if they win, the building will be brought up to residential code and they’ll be granted the right to stay. “If I can’t live in this place, there’s no way I would stay in this city,” Greg says. “The grit and character this city is globally renowned for is just gone.”

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

clockworks puppet studio

space type: theatre | neighborhood: red hook | active: 2011–2012 | links: website, blog

Photo from Monthly Brand

The Clockworks Puppet Theatre is in trouble. If they don’t receive a miracle in the form of a cash influx very very soon, the theatre will have to close its doors. It’s the same sad story, and one of the reasons I started this site: rents are rising, landlords are greedy, and the first casualties are always the artists—the very people who made the neighborhood an exciting place to be, and the reason for the soaring housing costs. Clockworks is an amazing, incredibly unique space that offers a home for experimental performance in a city going increasingly monocultural, and it would be such a shame to see them go.

photo by me

There’s one final performance of Das Wonderkammer Puppet Kabarett—Save the Clockworks Edition tonight (9/29), which I very strongly encourage you all to see, as it may be your last chance. If you have the means to donate to the cause, get in touch with Jonny Clockworks to help save an incredible piece of Brooklyn creativity from extinction. If they can keep their doors open for the next couple of months, Jonny promises a whole slew of amazing offerings, including a month of Halloween celebrations, more kids’ workshops, plenty of cabarets, and on and on. Help if you can!

Photo from Jonny Clockworks' Picassa

A bit more about the space:

The Cosmic Bicycle Theatre was started in Boston in 1989 by Jonny Clockworks, a puppeteer, director, and experimental musician. In 1995 he moved into a space in the East Village, on East 12th St., right across from Old Devil Moon. They were the only ones on the block, and Jonny says they formed a kind alliance, with the restaurant feeding him some nights when he was less than flush. In 1999 Jonny was forced out due to skyrocketing rents, and after several years of a nomadic existence, he moved the whole shebang to Red Hook in 2011, opening both the Cosmic Bicycle Theatre and the Clockworks Experimental Puppetry Studio.

Jonny Clockworks, photo by Hannah Egan for Brooklyn Daily

The new space was conceived as a home for experimental puppet shows and performances at night, and during the day a workshop space for children’s activities. The theatre has incredible events, such as the recurring Das Wonderkammer Puppet Kabarett, Kidz Vaudeville matinees, Junior Puppet Master workshops, and Halloween Hell Kabarett, as well as single events like Netherworld and a collaboration with Norah Jones set to her album Little Broken Hearts.

Photo from Jonny Clockworks' Picassa

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Like this? Read about more theatres: Bushwick Starr, Chez Bushwick, South Oxford Space, UnionDocs, Spectacle Theatre