During the first half of the twentieth century, New York City was a manufacturing hub that serviced huge swaths of the country. The city was full of these gargantuan factories, huge spaces in which people produced everything from bullets to notebooks to shoes to food. However, as the country entered the second half of the twentieth century and manufacturing shifted away from New York City, a huge surplus of these spaces was left vacant. In the aftermath, many of them were taken over by artists looking for expansive studio spaces to house their work. Joshua Charow has been documenting the way in which artistry overtook manufacturing in these places for his new book, Loft Law: The Last of New York City’s Original Artist Lofts.
What used to be printing shops, garment factories, and flophouses have been converted into incredibly unique artistic spaces, form-fitted to each individual artist and tailored to suit their needs. Rarely seen by the public, these large spaces often blend into the background of the mosaic that is New York City, but in reality, they are populated by painters, sculptors, and other artists.
When manufacturers found they could operate much more cost-efficiently outside of New York City, they began migrating en masse throughout the ‘60s and ‘70s, leading to the owners of these large spaces being in desperate need of tenants. Charow notes, “The only people who would rent the space were artists, and that’s because they had tall ceilings, so they could make big work. They had big windows to let in lots of light. The spaces were completely raw, in many circumstances.”
While this was a temporary fix, in which artists were given a safe space to work and then landlords benefitted from the artists’ work, it was “technically illegal.” As a result, by the end of the ‘70s, these same landlords were actively pushing artists out in favor of courting more high-end tenants who would pay far more for the space and net them greater profit.
This resulted in artists fighting back and seeking to keep the spaces they had been so instrumental in retrofitting. This conflict led directly to the 1982 Article 7-C of the New York Multiple Dwelling Law, which is widely referred to as the 1982 Loft Law. In it, Loft Law stated that protection and rent stabilization would be provided to people who had been living in these spaces.
At this time, thousands of artists were living in these lofts across New York City. But now, some five decades later, only a few hundred remain. They are a dying breed, one which so often provides the heart and soul of the New York City experience but one that is unseen and underappreciated. This is what led Charow to take so long to document them.
Charow met with and photographed 75 artists over the course of multiple years. Of those 75, a total of 30 artists will be featured in his impending book, Loft Law: The Last of New York City’s Original Artist Lofts.
Charow adds, “My life has been greatly enriched by meeting some of these artists and learning about their lives and their stories.” He goes on to elaborate further, saying, “This isn’t just a thing of New York’s past. This is the present… I think it’s a beautiful part of our city that this exists. It took a lot of resilience and ingenuity to stay in these spaces.”
