Westbeth Center for the Arts reaches halfway mark in $6 million restoration project

Westbeth Center for the Arts has reached the halfway mark in its current $6 million building repair and reconstruction project at the 13-building artists' live/work complex. This is in addition to the millions more spent recovering from the devastation of Superstorm Sandy in October 2012. Sandy flooded the complex's basement and destroyed hundreds of pieces of artwork that were placed in storage by residents. It also knocked out vital mechanical, electrical, heating and plumbing infrastructure, including a brand-new $2.3 million boiler system. The complex's ownership responded by investing more than $5 million in immediate repairs with funds from a new mortgage on the property and insurance proceeds. Additional funds from insurance and other sources have brought the total spent at Westbeth since 2012 to more than $10 million for flood repairs and the start of an ambitious restoration of one of the oldest and most successful artists' housing projects in the nation. Since Sandy, Westbeth has replaced all of the equipment destroyed by the storm, completed extensive asbestos abatement, and commenced new roofing and major façade repairs for the century-old complex at the intersection of West and Bethune Sts. in Far West Village. "The hurricane inflicted a tremendous amount of damage to the property and ruined untold amounts of valued artwork that our residents had in storage in the basement," said Steven Neil, the Westbeth executive director." Virtually none of the artwork could be salvaged, and that was a tragic, irreplaceable loss. Nevertheless, we have persevered with our vision to restore Westbeth's physical plant so we can preserve this treasured cultural asset for artists for the next 100 years." Transformed in the 1960s from Bell Laboratories into a live-work artists' community designed by Richard Meier, Westbeth continues today as a viable model for affordable housing. Its tenants pay an average of $900 a month, many for apartments with high ceilings and drop-dead views. Westbeth, a New York City landmark, contains 384 residential live-work units and is also the home of the Martha Graham Center of Contemporary Dance, The New School for Drama graduate program, the LAByrinth Theater, a synagogue, an art gallery, and numerous large and small spaces rented to painters, sculptors, musicians and other artists.