Gallery

Multimedia visual artist, assemblage maker, AIDS activist, and everyone’s best friend Barton Lidice Benes. Barton and cake plate of “petit fours” assembled from pills taken daily for his HIV. (Photo courtesy of Rebecca Chaiken).

Rock and Roll photographer Bob Gruen and visual artist Elizabeth Gregory-Gruen in their apartment. Bob’s books Rock Seen, John Lennon: The New York Years, and his autobiography Right Place, Right Time: The Life of a Rock & Roll Photographer are mandatory reading for all rock aficionados. (Photo courtesy of Bob Krasner).

Painting of actor and civil rights activist Hugh Hurd by Alice Neel. Painting is part of the collection of the Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Arkansas. Hurd was referred to as the “mayor” of the West Village as he knew everyone, and a short walk to 8th Avenue would take a long time as he’d be stopped to chat by everyone along the way.

Christina Maile is a landscape architect, printmaker, visual artist, writer, co-founder of the Westbeth Feminists Playwright Collective, and winner of the Miriam Chaikin Award for Writing. As a long-time member of the Westbeth Artists Residents Council and the Westbeth Board she has been a leader in the shared governance of Westbeth. (Photo courtesy of Tom Conelly).

Painter Karen Santry in her studio in the I-Building. Karen’s larger than life Kabuki figures are painted on plywood cutouts, and her gigantic frolicking cutouts of Dalmatian dogs adorn the entrance to the preschool on the Bethune Street side of Westbeth. (Photo courtesy of Tom Conelly).

Joan Hall in her apartment, that is also an art piece. Joan began as a dancer, actress, and mime, and became a successful visual artists and collage artist, and now considers herself primarily a writer. This evolution between different art genres and media is common in the Westbeth milieu. (Photo courtesy of Tom Conelly).

Sculptor Charlie Seplowin on the roof outside his 11th floor apartment, facing Julian Schable’s pink Palazzo Chupi building. Like many others, Charlie lost his life’s work when the Westbeth basement studios were flooded due to Hurricane Sandy. He then took a derelict elevator shaft that poked through the roof on the 4th floor and fixed the roof, removed three feet of pigeon droppings accumulated over decades, and created a new studio with a second-floor loft. (Photo courtesy of Tom Conelly).

Jack Dowling was a visual artist and writer who created a multi-story space in his apartment with 19-foot ceilings. This photo by Frankie Alduino was blown up to be one story high and displayed in the Westbeth courtyard as part of the celebrations of 50 years of Westbeth’s existence. (Photo courtesy of Tom Conelly).

Painter Stephen Hall’s hyper-realism and surrealism depicts images of the destruction of the earth in the Anthropocene. Hall’s work exudes the chaos of modern life juxtaposed with images of beauty and nature. His daughter Reef was featured in The Humans of NY and briefly the 9-year-old Reef adorned the sides of NYC city buses.

In 2020 Westbeth was due to celebrate its 50 years in existence just as the pandemic hit. The creative artists found a way to celebrate their collective accomplishments and their lives together by creating exhibits in and around the building that could be visited while social-distancing. Huge posters in the entry level halls celebrated the contributions of long-time employees, including the “porters” who keep Westbeth functioning. (Photo courtesy of Tom Conelly).

Westbeth resident and photographer Leonard Freed documented residents’ participation in the official opening of Westbeth in spring 1970. The event was attended by Mayor Lindsey and hundreds of artists who arrived at Westbeth with their work, their tools, their children, and many, many pets.

Historic photo of the building when it was the Bell Telephone Research Lab in the 1930s. The elevated train ran along the western edge of Manhattan connecting industrial sites throughout the area and allowed them to transport manufactured goods in volume without disturbing street level traffic. The rail beds are still visible on the 3rd floor opening where the trains travelled, although the girders connecting the rail bed to other buildings were removed in the early 1980s. A few blocks north at Gansevoort Street the elevated rail line is intact and became the foundation for the famed Highline Park. (Photo courtesy of the AT&T Archives and History Center).

Westbeth’s west-facing facade with the elevated West Side Highway that blocked light to apartments on the first through third floors. Built in stages between 1929 and 1951, the structure deteriorated and lacked maintenance until 1973 when a fully-loaded truck collapsed through the elevated highway, closing it to traffic for a decade. The sections outside Westbeth were eventually demolished in the early 1980s, and in 1998 NYC began rehabilitating the derelict and dangerous waterfront. Now home to the Hudson River Park that encompasses 550 acres of riverfront parkway and is visited by 17 million people annually. (Photo courtesy of the AT&T Archives and History Center).

Westbeth from the corner of Washington and Bank Streets, with the historic smokestacks visible but obsolete. Opening in building where train passed through is still visible. (Photo courtesy of Tom Conelly). 

Richard Meier’s innovative design for the repurposing of the Bell Labs included half-moon balconies that connected adjacent apartments in the interior courtyards. This obviated the need for unsightly fire escapes, and the intent was that residents fleeing fire would climb out the window and into their neighbor’s space to escape fire, and the fire would not spread due to the solid brick construction. There have been several fires, but the half-moon balconies have not been used for egress... but they make a fine place for potted plants and permit kids who have been accidentally locked out to get back into their apartments. (Photo courtesy of Tom Conelly)

Half-moon balconies from below. (Photo courtesy of Tom Conelly). 

Original smokestacks remain, and a new catwalk connects the top floor (home of the Martha Graham Dance Company) with a roof-top deck on the adjacent building. (Photo courtesy of Tom Conelly).

Westbeth seen from a boat in the Hudson River with the Hudson River Park in foreground. (Photo courtesy of Tom Conelly). 

The renovation of Bell Labs and birth of Westbeth coincided with the peak of pop art in America. The brightly colored coffered ceiling in the lobby is all that remains. The original color scheme that was used around the elevator lobbies on all levels included orange, hot pink, bright blue, kelly green, and neon yellow. (Photo courtesy of Tom Conelly).

Westbeth included “duplex” apartments that span two floors and were intended for families. Instead of two levels stacked on top of each other, the entry level of the duplex was small and housed the bathroom, and steep steps ascended at a right angle to the second level that was stacked on top of the adjacent apartment. Children who grew up in the apartments reportedly took sheets of cardboard and pillows and used these steep staircases as slides in their play. (Photo of Christina Maile’s apartment, courtesy of Tom Conelly).

Painter Karen Santry’s kitchen. (Photo courtesy of Tom Conelly). 

Painter Karen Santry’s studio in the I-Building. Studio spaces in this building can only be reached by non-ADA compliant steep stairs and the building lacks proper heating and cooling, but space to work is at a premium in NYC. (Photo courtesy of Tom Conelly). 

Fourth floor rooftop. (Photo courtesy of Tom Conelly).

Detail of half-moon balcony. (Photo courtesy of Tom Conelly).

Curated collections in Joan Hall’s apartment. (Photo courtesy of Tom Conelly).

Historic photo of lobby mailroom with anti-war poster, ca. 1971. The opening of Westbeth in 1970 coincided with great unrest and activism – anti-war, pro civil rights, gay rights, women’s rights – and virtually all Westbeth residents were active in these events. Photo likely from Leonard Freed.

Poster advertising Keith Haring’s first solo exhibition, held in the Westbeth Gallery. Many artists had their first success at Westbeth, or were nurtured in the community, including actors Vin Diesel, Josh Hamilton, Dash Mihok, and Nadia Dajani.