More Easy Money

In the 1980s in New York City in the Borough of Manhattan, generally considered the art capital of the known universe, landlords were throwing easy money at artists to entice them to vacate their live-work spaces to make way for more productive members of society, like lawyers, bankers and kids with rich parents.  Many struggling artists took the bait, leading to short-term gains for them and long-term disaster for the housing market for artists.

Manhattan has been a no-fly zone for the creative community ever since, with affordable live-work spaces for aspiring artists nonexistent, and the few remaining work-only studio spaces going for exorbitant monthly rents. 

A Carnegie Hall Studio

Hovsep Pushman,Symphony of Life,Private Collection

http://taotothetruth.blogspot.com

Wayman Adams (1883-1959), Alexander Ernestinoff, 1914
Oil on Canvas, 42 3/4 x 36 in., Indianapolis Museum of Art

And a couple of years ago, Carnegie Hall kicked out all the tenants from the more than 100 studios above the historic concert hall that had been occupied by painters, dancers, musicians and other creative types for over a century.  Many of these studios featured either skylights or huge windows offering north light views of Central Park.  Painters of the past included the noted portraitist Wayman Adams and the Armenian-born painter of exquisite, mystical still lifes, Hovsep Pushman, who was the most successful artist in America for many years in the mid-20^th Century.  His work strongly influenced David Leffel, one of my teachers at The Art Students League and a very successful still life painter himself.

A lot of artists moved to the Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island as a result, establishing new visual arts enclaves, but affordable housing is getting harder to find in the outer boroughs as well.  Oh, there is some public money available for housing third-rate arts organizations in Manhattan that are good at groveling and grant writing.  But that’s a drop in the bucket and means nothing for artists who aren’t “joiners.”

In the 19^th and early 20^th Centuries, dozens of buildings catering to the visual arts community were erected in Manhattan.  Some of them are still standing, including the League’s historic 1892 building at 215 West 57^th Street.  An old painter friend remembers artists being able to sublet huge north light studios for peanuts in the 1940s and 50s whenever they had important portrait commissions to complete.  Now a closet-sized studio in Manhattan, illuminated only by artificial light, can rent for $1,000 a month or more, if you can find one.

North light studios with 20-foot-high ceilings, angled skylights or tall, duplex windows were the prime components of these structures.  Who wouldn’t want to inhabit those magnificent spaces?   Today only the very wealthy can, including a few lucky artists like the 84-year-old Alex Katz, who still lives and works in the Soho loft he moved into in 1968.

Adequate live-work spaces for artists were still plentiful in New York City’s frontier environment of the late 1960s into the early 80s, and I’ve kicked myself for 30 years for not latching onto one of them.  But when so many artists took their buyout money and ran to Vermont or New Mexico, the game was over for affordable housing for artists.  I think the usual buy-out accepted was $50,000, a lot of money for a struggling artist back then.  A friend of mine, who was painting movie posters at the age of 14 in his native Bolivia, got enough money to start his own billboard company.  He learned the treacherous scaffolding business of necessity, and for 20 years or so he and his crew painted billboards in Times Square and elsewhere until the industry began pasting pre-printed posters on high and his sign-painting techniques were no longer in demand.

Another artist I knew really hit the jackpot.  But he had to earn it the hard way.  He was a good-looking, skinny guy from California who modeled a bit at the League to help pay the rent.   In the winter he wore expensive cashmere coats two or three sizes too large that some say he picked out of the trash bins behind The Plaza Hotel.  A bit of a charming hustler, I believe he liked to hang around in the evening at spots frequented by Andy Warhol and other members of Manhattan’s “in crowd” at the time.  He was occupying a studio in a building near the League that the landlord wanted to tear down to put up a luxury apartment building.  All the tenants vacated the building except him.  He stayed on despite being physically attacked at one point by the landlord’s goons, who were making his stay more and more miserable.  But he persevered and won a stunning settlement of $500,000.  The landlord died the day after the award was granted.  The artist wed a girl from the League, gave her a nice chunk of money to end the brief marriage, had a show of his artwork at a New York gallery and then moved back to California to stay.  

Considering all the stories about those "lucky" lottery winners who come to no good end, and the poor saps who get sucked into get-rich-quick investment schemes, it's easy to conclude that money is never really easy for anybody and causes a heap of trouble.   A long time ago, in a book nobody reads much anymore, somebody said it a lot better.