neighborhood: crown heights | space type: performance venue & coworking | active since: 2013 | links: website, facebook

Mister Rogers, a multimedia art and events space in a former West Indian bakery, is a relatively new addition to Crown Heights, but has already established itself as a home for creative expression and community-focused exchange. Founded by a trio of childhood friends, the goal of the space is to bring together the neighborhood’s very diverse populations through a variety of events and activities. It has also become a home for coworking and film and video production, bringing in increasingly high-level folks, from CNN to Forbes to Macaulay Culkin.

pix by Ruvi Leider

The first official Mister Rogers event was a collaboration with the Hoover Dam arts collective, which became a regular series called “For Locals, By Locals,” featuring music, comedy, dance, spoken word, and visual art presented by people who live in the neighborhood. Since then they’ve hosted everything from Baloonacy, a dance party among 3,000 LED-equipped balloons, to Psychic Spring, a queer performance party, to “What I Be,” a touring photography showcase that had been banned by its original host, Yeshiva University. “It has been so gratifying to see different types of people coming together in our space who might otherwise never even talk to each other,” said cofounder Ruvi Leider.

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

neighborhood: east williamsburg | space type: music venue | active since: 2009 | links: website, facebook

On an anonymous and very industrial block in East Williamsburg, the Swamp has been going strong for six years—an incredible run for a DIY venue. Shows are mostly punk and hardcore—Resistance Culture, the Degenerics, Reagan Youth, Death Mold, HR of Bad Brains, the annual Latino Punk Fest—and there’s also a regular “dirty reggae” night and some ska and rocksteady shows. Many are benefits for radical groups like Anarchist Black Cross, WIN Animal Rights, NYC Antifa, and the Wolf Mountain Sanctuary. “Our thing is not money, but community,” says Christian E., who runs the space. “We have a great group of people who follow us and come to all the shows, so we try to make each one a really awesome event.”

pix by Walter Wlodarczyk

After such a long run, the Swamp is going to be slowing down on shows in order to refocus the space as a recording studio. There’s some awesome events planned for May and June to raise money for the Swamp’s new incarnation, so keep an eye on the Facebook page for updates.

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

Art party space 12-turn-13 sits in a huge industrial building dating back to the 1930s, one of only two remaining structures from the MH Renken Dairy complex (preservationists are working to designate the other as a historic landmark). For the last sixteen years—an incredible lifespan in today’s deliriously shifting Brooklyn underground—this beautiful loft has hosted all manner of DJs, gallery shows, and complex performance events, from Wolf + Lamb and Mister Saturday Night dance parties to exotic honey tastings and elaborately themed fêtes.

all photos courtesy of theARTcorps

Read on for plenty of reminiscences and fantastic stories from owner Steve R. about sixteen years of underground Brooklyn brilliance.
[n.b.: this interview took place in September 2013]

brooklyn spaces: This space is just gorgeous. What was it like when you got it?
Steve: Oh, it was an absolute sty. There were these huge hinged industrial windows that weighed about fifty pounds, they had bars on the outside and the inside. There were strips of fluorescent lights hanging from the dropped ceilings, which were curling at the edges from water damage. There were all sorts of wire conduits everywhere, and there was a concrete bunker in the corner that functioned as a bathroom—it consisted of a toilet, about enough space for a toilet paper roll, and on the outside, literally hanging off its pipe, a sink that didn’t work. That was it.

brooklyn spaces: So it was love at first sight?
Steve: Well, I’d looked at about sixty different places, from Sunset Park to Greenpoint—leaving out Williamsburg, because I knew I didn’t want to go there.
brooklyn spaces: Even in 1998 you didn’t want to go to Williamsburg?
Steve: Well, I was living in the East Village at the time, and an Urban Outfitters had just moved in across the street from me. I knew what was going to happen in Williamsburg, and I just couldn’t do that again. Anyway, I had a car at the time, so I drove here, and when I walked in, this place was so disgusting, but I could see the beams, the wood floors, the perfect lighting, I knew it had the bones. So I immediately said, “Yes, I’ll take it!” And then I drove back to the East Village and thought, “Oh god, is there a subway? Is there any food?” I had no idea. So I had to come back and walk the neighborhood. Luckily there was a post office, a supermarket, a few amenities. So yes, love at first sight, and then a lot of work. We ripped out the drop ceiling and exposed all these beams—that took about nine months on a twelve-foot ladder, scraping it all by hand with a little brush. And then carpenters, electricians, plumbers; we basically built everything from scratch.

brooklyn spaces: And the goal was always to make a living space where you could throw parties?
Steve: Yes. My East Village apartment was 600 square feet, and I had parties there for years. My scene was DJs and downtown artists, performers, and fashion people. We did First Friday salons every month, where people would come over and share what they did, creatively. It grew to the point where we had a keg in the bathtub and people lined up and down the stairs smoking cigarettes until 4 o’clock in the morning, and I just realized my neighbors hated me and I had to move.

SPANK party, photo by Jemma Nelson

brooklyn spaces: You had no resistance to coming to Brooklyn?
Steve: There was only Brooklyn. Where else could we go?
brooklyn spaces: What about your guests—was there resistance for them to come to Brooklyn?
Steve: Oh god, yes. This is back in the day when we had to actually print invitations and handwrite the addresses and put them in the mail. People didn’t even know about the G; back then we called it the Ghost Train. One friend came out for a salon here and didn’t have my phone number; he was banging on the door but we didn’t hear him, and he went back home and that was the end of our friendship. He was so upset about how far he’d had to come! Nowadays of course it’s no big deal, but then? Yeah, it was tough.

Blue Dinner Party

brooklyn spaces: What was the neighborhood like?
Steve: Well, Myrtle Avenue was called Murder Ave. There was a double homicide right up the block, there was a brothel across the street; once they threw a television out a fourth-floor window—what a spectacular crash. There were no gays, not many white kids. But what I loved about it was that it was Brooklyn, it felt so real to me. And I knew all my neighbors, they would all come to my parties. Now everybody looks alike and I hardly know any of them.

brooklyn spaces: How has it been, watching that change?
Steve: Well, I can actually eat in my neighborhood now. I can buy coconut ice cream at 4 in the morning, and there are boutiques and a yoga studio; but now I have to be concerned about how much noise I make. So it’s not the same but the neighborhood has retained a lot of its character, and I think it’s changing with some integrity. But we’ll see how it goes.

Midnight Magic

brooklyn spaces: Let’s talk about the parties. Tell me about some great ones or awful ones or really memorable ones.
Steve: Oh my, sixteen years. Let’s see. In probably 1999 we threw a series of parties called “b_list.” The price to get in was $3—the graffiti tag “$3 too much” is still in my hallway. We had breakdancers spinning on cardboard boxes, go-go dancers, the DJ atop the booth with his pants around his ankles; people were having sex in the bathroom, sex in the water-heater closet, sex in the corner—it was crazy. Someone shat on my couch in the supposedly locked storage area.

Halloween party

brooklyn spaces: Wow. Were all the parties that intense?
Steve: No, no, that was something of an anomaly. When I moved in here it was to make a playground for a variety of artists, and every party had basically two criteria: it had to be multi-disciplinary, and it had to change the space, so that every time you walked in here you went “Ooh, it’s totally different!” We did a series of “Art Inspired By Nature” parties that were very involved: from 6 to 9 it was a proper art gallery, from 9 to 11 there were performances, and then the lights would go down, the DJs would start, and, you know, my parents and all the neighborhood kids would vacate and it would turn into a real party. Those parties were so much effort! First we curated about 30 artists around a nature theme, and then I found an environmental nonprofit partner—for one about water, we partnered with Riverkeeper and they did a lecture for us on the New York Watershed; we also went to the Coney Island Aquarium and got a behind-the-scenes tour of feeding the sharks and propagating jellyfish. For another, about air, we partnered with Earthpledge. So it was about six months of work and planning leading up to a one-night event, and it was like BOOM, crescendo! And then massive depression afterward. It became very difficult to maintain that momentum.

Art Inspired By Nature party

brooklyn spaces: How did you keep from totally wearing yourself out?
Steve: Well, around 2005 I met the Wolf + Lamb guys and started throwing parties with them, which was much easier: all I had to do was set up and clean the space. They had a following, so they’d promote to their people, I’d promote to my people, and everyone would come. There was suddenly this thing called email, which made it all so much easier! So I’ve been doing mostly DJ parties ever since then. We’ve been doing the Mister Saturday Night parties for about five years now, with some Mister Sunday parties in the winter months. They’re the most magical parties, full of a diverse group of people, and even children. We really deck out the space with fun décor and art installations; we’ve been partnering with Jeffrey Ralston, who does amazing inflatables that make everyone smile.

Mister Sunday party

brooklyn spaces: So DJ parties became your main focus.
Steve: Yes, but I do still host smaller, more intimate and creative salons. We’ve had supper clubs and wine tastings and salsa dancing lessons and a jazz concert. Oh, and one of my favorite recent parties was for my birthday, a Bee-Day Party, because I’m now a beekeeper. We had flowers everywhere, there was a honey tasting, we had a little photo booth with Astroturf, a real log, a flower-ringed arbor, sky, clouds, and a kite. Jeff did these gigantic nine-foot inflatable flowers. It was wonderful.

Mister Saturday Night

brooklyn spaces: Tell me about one more really memorable party, where everything just worked perfectly.
Steve: A few years ago we did one called “Dante’s Inferno” in collaboration with the theatre collective Augenblick. It started in the city and went through the Nine Circles of Hell on the way here. The first and second were in Union Square, the third was on the L train platform, the fourth and fifth were in the Lorimer station, the sixth was on the G train at the Classon stop, and then on down the hill. When people approached 12-turn-13, we had all these performers out on the street: fire throwers and twirlers and a nine-foot monster. And then you came inside and the entire space was decorated to be Hell. People walked in through a green screen, and their images were projected in flames elsewhere in the space. It was incredible.

Dante's Inferno party

brooklyn spaces: Having come from the East Village and been here for so long, what do you think is the influence of Brooklyn on 12-turn-13—or the influence of 12-turn-13 on Brooklyn?
Steve: I came to Brooklyn at the right time. I think at this point, finding a space like this, it’s kind of too late unless you have a lot of money or you’re venturing much farther out. But I think there are still pockets all around. I have friends in the Rockaways who bought the Playland Motel, which is an amazing space, and I know there’s the whole industrial complex in Sunset Park that’s going to explode. There’s still that pioneering spirit, and there’s still space if you look for it. During the Red Bull Music Academy, Justin [Carter, of Mister Saturday Night] and I went out to Knockdown Center, and walking into that courtyard, seeing that massive building, I felt like it was 1996 again, this feeling of discovering something new and different and grand and ambitious and magnificent.

Salon Selects Supper Club

brooklyn spaces: Knockdown Center is one of my absolute favorite new spaces.
Steve: Architecturally, it’s astounding. It reminded me of the Lunatarium, this incredible space that was in Dumbo in the 2000s [ed note: check out Jeff Stark’s great piece on the closing of the Lunatarium], or the Fake Shop in Williamsburg, which was a huge warehouse where they had amazing inflatable installations and dark sensory-deprived crawl-space mazes you went through on your hands and knees. Knockdown Center for me was like, “Wow. It’s still happening.” There are always people who want to have an adventure, that craving for discovery. 12-turn-13 is the same, it’s a destination. You need to want to come here, but we’re going to throw such a good party that it will be worth the journey. At least, we hope it will.

***

Like this? Read about more underground party spaces: Rubulad, Gemini & Scorpio, Red Lotus Room, The Lab, Egg & Dart Club, Gowanus Ballroom, Newsonic

G&S Glitter Ball, NYE 2013 (photo by Linus Gelber)

For ten years, Gemini & Scorpio have been throwing huge, immersive themed parties, consistently positioning themselves at the forefront of the NYC underground art-party world. Along with a few other beautifully creative affairs—Rubulad, Dances of Vice, Shanghai Mermaid, Cheryl, various Winkel + Balktick shindigs—Gemini & Scorpio curate the most creative, daring, and over-the-top events that Brooklyn has to offer. Whether it’s jazz bands in a Russian banya, a steampunk Burning Man fundraiser, an old-meets-new electro-swing dance party at Lincoln Center, or a New Year’s Eve glitter explosion, Gemini & Scorpio bring together dancers, music, and performers around lavish themes to create unforgettable occasions, party after party after party. And that’s not all: G&S also curate a weekly events listing that is second only to NonsenseNYC for finding the most fantastic things to do any day of the week. Sign up here!

After years of being nomadic, Miss Scorpio found a permanent home for G&S in a repurposed Gowanus woodshop. Now, in addition to lavish monthly parties, the loft hosts lectures, dance classes, plays, photo and video shoots, and more. And after spending months on demolition and build-out of the new space, Miss Scorpio reached out to the community she has provided with so many fantastic experiences to ask for help with the next stage of development of her space—and successfully raised more than $32k through Kickstarter. In the short term, this will mean new floors, walls, and ceiling for the loft, and in the long term it will allow G&S to keep bringing us all the best, most magical affairs—the uniquely beautiful experiences that make Brooklyn the most spectacular place to be.

photos by Maximus Comissar unless noted

brooklyn spaces: Let’s start before this space: tell me how you became one of New York’s most creative party mavens.

Miss Scorpio, photo by Linus Gelber

Miss Scorpio: It was a pure accident that started with a website about online dating. This was ten years ago, when online dating was mostly considered weird and sad, but Miss Gemini and I wanted to show people that it was actually this fabulous thing, like eBay for dating. We thought you should never just do dinner and a movie with your online date; you should do something interesting, so that even if the date sucked, at least you’d have had a cool night. So every Friday we put out a list of unique things to do with your online date, and then we started throwing “singles parties that don’t suck.” Well, they didn’t suck to such a degree that we couldn’t keep couples out! We started with a Valentine’s Day party, then we did one for Halloween, and another one for New Year’s, and now it’s ten years later and this is all I do.

brooklyn spaces: What elements are necessary to make a Gemini & Scorpio party?
Miss Scorpio: First there has to be a theme, something a bit off-beat and unexpected that gives people an excuse to dress up. Live entertainment is another factor that’s really important: there’s generally a whole evening of programming curated to the theme. A G&S party isn’t one you drop into casually on your way to something else; our ideal party guest is one who leaves the house knowing that they’re coming to see us, dresses to the theme, and stays with us for the whole night.

brooklyn spaces: Tell me about some of your favorite parties.

banya party, photo from G&S

Miss Scorpio: I always enjoy the Lost Circus steampunk party, and also the banya parties, which we’ve been doing since 2006. A fantastic recent party was a sci-fi mashup called Cantina at the End of the Universe. It was a Star Wars Day party—I’ve been wanting to do that party for four years, but I had to wait until May 4th fell on a Saturday. One of the headliners was Big Nazo, this incredible alien monster funk band. They played the Masquerade Macabre Halloween party that I co-produced with Rubulad in 2010, which had one of my favorite moments of any party I’ve ever done. Big Nazo was onstage being joined by the five-piece Raya Brass Band, and I was leading a parade from our other party location, headed up by Extraordinary Rendition, a fifteen-person brass band. Big Nazo and Raya were supposed to be done when we got there but they weren’t, so we had like thirty people onstage jamming, along with these enormous alien monster puppets, and the crowd just lost their shit. It was beautiful. [Video of the madness here.]

Big Nazo, photo from G&S

brooklyn spaces: Who are some other favorite performers you’ve worked with?
Miss Scorpio: There’s definitely a family of performers that I book again and again. Sxip Shirey is an absolute genius composer and musician, and every time he plays I’m excited to hear it, especially when he performs with the incredible beat-boxer Adam Matta. The Love Show dancers are wonderful, they combine classical dance training with a cabaret attitude and fantastic costumes. Shayfer James is a terrific dark rock musician who deserves a much bigger audience than he’s getting. Sometimes I take on artists as a personal cause, and keep booking them until people realize how incredible they are.

G&S piano

brooklyn spaces: Have you ever had someone get so big that they outgrow your parties?
Miss Scorpio: Yes! After I booked the Hot Sardines for my Lincoln Center Midsummer Night’s Swing two years ago, their career has exploded and they are now booked constantly. That’s happened with a bunch of circus people I used to book as well. But it’s a good problem to have. I’m very proud of my talented friends.

brooklyn spaces: Okay, let’s talk about this space. How long did you spend looking for it, and what shape was it in when you found it?
Miss Scorpio: Four years of constant searching, and in the end it was a random Craigslist find. The moment I walked in, I knew this was it, even though it was completely wrecked. There was plywood over all the windows, the floor was rotted in multiple places, there were strange pipes everywhere, the ceiling was half rotted out, there were signs of a recent fire. It was terrible.

a few months after move-in

brooklyn spaces: How long did it take you to get it into shape?
Miss Scorpio: First there were two months of just demolition. Everything you see, all the walls, we did it all. We re-laid much of the floor, using wood repurposed from other parts of the space. Once we got bathrooms up—with walls—I knew I was ready to let people in. The first party we did here was Swing House, one of my 1920s remix parties. Everybody loved it, but it was a party in a construction zone.

fixing the rotted floors

brooklyn spaces: Tell me about some of the non-party events you’ve had here.
Miss Scorpio: We’ve hosted a few lectures in conjunction with Observatory that have been great fun. We had one called “How to Trespass” with Wanderlust Projects, and another with my boyfriend, lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower, called “Sex in Dictionaries.” We just had a storytelling event, “I’m Tawkin’ Here,” which was all New Yorkers and New York stories. Brooklyn Swings does a weekly swing-dancing class. We hosted an immersive, participatory version of Midsummer Night’s Dream staged by Shakespeare Shakedown. I’m always looking for people who are doing innovative, interesting things and could benefit from having access to an affordable art space.

Meet Me in Paris Cabaret, photo by Binnorie Artwork

brooklyn spaces: What’s your relationship like within the rest of the underground arts community? I feel like, of everyone I’ve interviewed, you really know every single person in the creative class in Brooklyn.
Miss Scorpio: It’s an extremely tight-knit community. It’s not just me; I think we all know each other. But because I do the event listings, I have a good sense of what everyone is up to. Even if I don’t know someone personally, I can tell you what arc their work has taken over the last ten years.

G&S rooftop view

brooklyn spaces: Last year when you and I were doing Occupy Sandy volunteering together, you told me you once did the listings on your phone from Paris.
Miss Scorpio: Oh yeah. Another time I did them from a tethered connection in an RV on the way to Burning Man. Everywhere I’ve traveled, I’ve brought the listings with me. I consider it my community service, a way for me to give back to the people who trust me and honor me with their presence at my events.

G&S rooftop art

brooklyn spaces: What advice would you give someone who wanted to do what you do?
Miss Scorpio: I’d say definitely don’t get into it for the glamour! Ninety percent of what I do is spreadsheets and emails. Maybe by 11 or 12 on a party night I’ll finally get to get into costume and have a few hours of fun, but for the most part it’s a job like any other. For me the payoff is conceiving something and then seeing it become a reality.

brooklyn spaces: What are your plans for the future—ten more years of this?
Miss Scorpio: Oh gosh, I don’t know. It does seem like I’m pretty committed to the New York cultural underground, but I couldn’t tell you what will happen in my life in the next ten years. I hope it’s big and exciting.

***

Like this? Read about more underground nightlife: Rubulad, the Lab, Red Lotus Room, Newsonic, House of Yes, Gowanus Ballroom, 12-turn-13

For most of its run, Dead Herring—an apartment that sometimes doubled as a DIY music and occasional theatre space was fairly averse to any sort of press. That’s just part of the fun of running an underground apartment venue—some measure of paranoia is often called for. But Dead Herring closed Feb 1st, 2013, right after an amazing commemorative closing show, featuring the Immaculates (a band that was formed at a Dead Herring party), Moonmen on the Moon, Man (who broke up and then reunited just for this show), Necking!! (one of the Dead Herring creators’ band), and special secret guests.

Cuddle Machines, photo by Nicki Ishmael

Read my interview with housemates Liz, Nicki, Jeff, and Andrew, which took place on the eve of the end of Dead Herring, below. For more pix from Nicki, there’s a terrific six-year DH photo retrospective at Impose Magazine. And be sure to check out their new space in North Williamsburg, Cloud City!

show posters, photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: Tell me a quick history of how this all got started.
Jeff: Liz and I went to college together in California, and we both lived in this co-op called Cloyne Court Hotel in Berkeley that used to have shows in the kitchen, in the basement, wherever. The first time I went there Nerf Herder was playing, and I was like, “Whoa, this place is awesome! I’m moving in here next year!”
Nicki: My band played there once, it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. There were kegs in the quad, there was a room no one could go into, there was the most disgusting bathroom I’d ever seen in my life, it was covered in graffiti, and just everyone going crazy and hanging off pipes. It was so cool.
Jeff: And then years later I wound up living across the hall from Liz and Nick in the McKibben Lofts.
Liz: Nick and I are the ones who started Dead Herring. We had a couple of shows at McKibben, and when we heard about this space, we thought it would be great place to continue to do that. Nicki moved in six months later, and Jeff moved in in 2008, and Andrew moved in two years ago, in 2010.

Bare Wires, photo by Nicki Ishmael

brooklyn spaces: What was the first show?
Nicki: It was Maneguar, Pterodactyl, Golden Error, Marvel & Knievel, and Nonhorse.

brooklyn spaces: Do you all book shows?
Liz: I don’t. Nicki books all the music now, Jeff does the variety shows, and Andrew has brought some plays in.
brooklyn spaces: Nicki, is there a succinct way to characterize what kind of music you book here?
Nicki: No, not really. We used to have a lot more experimental noise shows when Nick lived here, because he was into experimental noise music and he booked that. I’m more into punk and rock and indie pop. I don’t know, it just depends on what comes together. If there’s a band coming through that we know, we’ll book around them. Or if we see a band we really like we’ll tell them to come play here. It used to be easier for bands to find us when we used the MySpace page, but that just became too much, we were getting like fifteen emails a day. None of us is a full-time booker, you know? When I have ten minutes I’ll IM people, like, “Hey, you want to play a show?”

photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: Tell me either the coolest or weirdest thing about living in a place where there are shows.
Nicki: A funny thing is that people don’t realize that we live here. People come here for shows and then they’ll come over for a potluck and be like, “Oh, wow, it looks so different. I didn’t know you had a couch.”
brooklyn spaces: I think that’s part of the charm of these spaces, that you know while you’re watching this band you’re sitting on the roof of someone’s closet or washing your hands in their kitchen sink.
Jeff: Did you read the article about the new Silent Barn in the Village Voice? They were saying how most DIY spaces are illegal, like no one can talk about it, which has kind of been our thing. But now the Silent Barn is like “No, this is completely legal.” They’re going to get a liquor license and whatever. One of our old roommates, Joe, who’s part of Showpaper, he lives there now.
Andrew: I had a lot of conversations with Joe when he lived here about this whole thing, about how all these spaces are somewhere along a continuum, like how much are they a house, and how much are they a venue? Silent Barn has always been basically a venue, even though people live there. We’re really a house that has shows once in a while.

Golden Error, photo by Nicki Ishmael

Nicki: We have to tell people all the time that they can’t have their birthday party here, or their mud-wrestling party. We’ve gotten a lot of weird requests over the years. But overall it’s fantastic, this house pretty much made my life in New York. I met all these people, I found something to do and a community to be in. I had no idea there was a music scene that was this small and this amazing here. You have these moments where you realize this is happening in your life and you created it and you’re a part of it. It makes me so happy. It’s so great when you have a whole bunch of bands come in at the beginning of the night, you’ve never met any of them before, and at the end of the night they’re all giving you giant hugs and saying this was the best show they’ve ever played. It’s so amazing that we had the opportunity to do this.
Jeff: People really appreciate us just trying to make an awesome, fun night, and when everybody’s stoked on it, it’s a good feeling. It’s great when really talented, amazing people have a great time performing here.
Andrew: We just had a theatre show that did a three-night run, and It was like we were living in this little theatre that everyone was a part of. I don’t know if you could achieve that in any other setting.

photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: Do you think that being in Williamsburg has affected the space?
Nicki: I really like that Death By Audio is so close, and 285 Kent, and Glasslands. It’s nice that there are still a few really good spaces around here. And I feel like living off the L and the J is convenient, a lot of people can come out to shows here. I don’t always want to go all the way to Bushwick, but people seem happy to come all the way out here, which is awesome. Jeff’s shows get put up on the Nonsense NYC list sometimes, and people come here from wherever because they’re like “Oh, I know where that is, I can get there.”
Andrew: For a performing arts venue it really makes a difference if it’s in a part of town that people want to go to.

Teenage Nightwar, photo by Nicki Ishmael

brooklyn spaces: And it’s nice to see that there are still places like this in Williamsburg. A lot of people think that all the creativity is gone from this neighborhood, but that’s not true. It’s just a little harder to find. Anyway, tell me about some of your favorite shows.
Nicki: My favorite “I can’t believe I actually pulled this together” show was when Forgetters played here, Blake Schwarzenbach of Jawbreaker’s band. So many people I know have loved his music since we were like sixteen years old, and he played in my living room! And we had this band called Leg Sweeper come, they played with our friends’ band Sleepies, and they were so excited about playing here, and we were so excited about having them play, and after the show we all hung out until 5 in the morning, and everybody slept over, and we made waffles in the morning, and it was magical. Or another one, after The Men played, we had a limbo contest with the guys in the band, which was so ridiculous and fun. I think the craziest show we ever had here was Calvin Johnson and Chain and the Gang. When I introduced Chain and the Gang, everyone just freaked the fuck out.
Liz: That show was my teenage dream come true. I was so thrilled, I couldn’t believe he was in our house. He got here early, and we were trying to set up, and our old cat was sitting on the bar, and he sang a song to the cat! It killed me. My other favorite moment was when Social Studies, our friends’ band from San Francisco, played last year. Right before they started to play my favorite song, someone cut in and said, “We just found out the Giants are going to the World Series.” The whole crowd was full of people from California, and everyone was so so so excited.

photo by Maximus Comissar

Andrew: I’m from Minneapolis, so when our friends’ theatre group came from Minneapolis to do their play, it was really exciting for me to get to share this space with them. They used to live in a space like this in Minneapolis, and one of them had a space like this in Baltimore before that where my theatre troupe performed, so being able to return the favor was really gratifying.
Jeff: I like all the variety shows, I guess. Oh and Reggie Watts, that was awesome. And Corn Mo.
Nicki: And the ventriloquist! And the magician who sawed a woman in half! And the guy from Cirque de Soliel who took all his clothes off and climbed all over the entire audience! And the lady who juggled with her feet! I know it sounds like we’re making this stuff up, but we’re not.
Jeff: Yeah, we’ve had some crazy stuff.

Hunters, photo by Nicki Ishmael

brooklyn spaces: What advice do would you give to other people who want to do something like this?
Nicki: Be nice. That’s something we try really hard to do. Now we’re friends with all the bands and performers and other DIY spaces in the city. That’s why we’re not super nervous about going into the new space. We feel like we’re not going to be alone, because all these other people are going to support us. All the DIY spaces are kind of in it together.
Jeff: Yeah, it sounds cheesy but we really feel like we’re part of a community. And we’re good at welcoming people in and having a positive vibe about everything.
Nicki: That makes it a lot more fun for everyone. We want to have fun too!

***

Like this? Read about more apartment performance spaces: Silent Barn, The Muse, Cave of Archaic Remnants, The Schoolhouse, Greenroom Brooklyn, Newsonic, Jerkhaus

The Lab—or as it’s known to the dance kids and hipsters, Electric Warehouse—is a 10,000-sq-ft underground party space deep in Bed-Stuy. Once upon a time it was used to repair trolleys, then it was a parking garage, then a strip club. It’s rumored that famed Brooklyn DJ Frankie Bones held some of his storm raves there in the mid-nineties. Now it’s a pliable, chameleonic space that hosts all kinds of parties for all different facets of the underground. As the Lab, there’s events like Friday Night SinSations, an urban gay dance party; weekly female-only hip-hop parties; CARNIVIBES, a reggae party with Carribean food and drinks; and P. Diddy’s “Biggie Day” tribute. As Electric Warehouse it caters to techno music and rave culture, with parties thrown by groups like Feed the Starving Artists, NYCRavers, SUN Collective, RefugeNYC, and Unicorn Meat. The space has also hosted some big-name artists, from Ninjasonik and Designer Drugs to Chris Brown and Snoop Dogg.

I haven’t been to a rave in a lot of years, but I’ve been wanting to check out the Lab for months, and after a special invitation from Alex of Unicorn Meat, who, along with Feed the Starving Artists, was co-producing GET DIGITAL, a pre–Burning Man dance party, I headed out to Bed-Stuy with the intrepid Maximus Comissar to see what it was all about. First we went mid-week to see what the space was like empty, and I was a little surprised at how bare and personality-less it was, compared to other underground party spaces like Rubulad and Red Lotus Room. But when we went back on Saturday night, after a very thorough pat-down at the door, we walked in to find the place totally transformed. There was a huge pyramid jutting out of one wall, different crazy video projections coming from four different balconies, the stage was lush with six-foot flowers, there were fire-spinners and a Merry Pranksters–like bus in the parking lot, and the whole place was teeming with people just dancing their faces off. I’d forgotten how crazy awesome the energy gets at a rave, and it was super fun to watch. Everyone was dressed crazy, painted up crazy, gyrating and fist-pumping and sweating and grinning like mad. Good fucking times.

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brooklyn spaces: How did you get involved with the Lab?
Alex: I throw underground warehouse parties all over New York, so I know a lot of different spaces. The Lab is really big, large enough that we would likely be able to not reach capacity over the entire night. At the last place I put on an event we had a much smaller capacity and way, way too many people came. So I talked to the owner of the Lab, built up a relationship with him.

brooklyn spaces: Have you been to other events here?
Alex: Oh yeah, a lot. Drew Meeks, a friend of mine and a member of the Burning Man community, he did a party here a year or two ago called Gratitude, which was one of the most amazing events I’ve ever been to. He had acrobatic aerialists, massages, chill rooms, and he worked with Leo Villareal, who’s a famous LED artist and also a part of our Burning Man camp. They had these giant red LEDs, which are part of a sign they bring out to the desert every year, and they just had these crazy transformations, shooting into the center and back out, making different patterns and all these different variables. The GET DIGITAL party was more of a rave than the other events my friends and I usually do. Our scene is a little bit different than the rave scene, musically and culturally.

brooklyn spaces: How do you define your scene?
Alex: It’s art-based. There are some others that touch on artistic things, but mostly in decoration, not in practice. We really go out of our way to make our own clothing, make our own costumes, do interactive art during events. It’s generally an older, more mature crowd, and there are a lot of working professionals who are very talented. Any time I need any kind of legal advice, or real estate advice, or we’re trying to deal with something logistical, all I really need to do is put the word out, and within hours we can get anything solved.

brooklyn spaces: Are there some artists you’ve worked with a lot who you really love?
Alex: I love all artists. There’s so many, I wouldn’t even know where to start.

brooklyn spaces: When you’re planning the parties, how do you decide what elements to include?
Alex: It’s sort of like the orgasmic peak in a song, where it starts off kind of slow and mellow and then builds up, and then you have a heavy-hitting section, and then it kind of mellows out again, and then right before it ends, you just pump it up out of nowhere. When I book my artists, that’s what I take into consideration. There’s an endless amount of artists in the city who want to participate in good parties. We’re so blessed with it.

brooklyn spaces: Do you feel like Brooklyn has had an impact on the way you throw parties or the way you conceive art, or the way the underground works?
Alex: I’ve traveled a lot, I’ve been to thirty-something countries in the past two years, hitchhiking all over the place, and the reason I came back here is because I’m a cosmopolitan, I love all people, I love the world, and New York is the center of the world. It’s got more cultural diversity, countercultural diversity, linguistic diversity, it’s got something for everyone, no matter who you are. It’s really a beautiful place.

brooklyn spaces: For you, in the simplest terms, what makes a good party?
Alex: The people. That’s the most important thing. As long as you have a room, music, and good people coming in, that’s it, as far as I’m concerned.

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Like this? Read about more underground party spaces: Rubulad, Red Lotus Room, Gowanus Ballroom, 12-turn-13, Newsonic, Gemini & Scorpio loft

The Red Lotus Room is breathtaking. The first time I went was for BANZAI!!!!!, a surreally crazy art and performance party, full of elaborate costumed revelers, an eclectic selection of multimedia art, and performances from drag acts to DJ sets. The second (and third, and fourth, and fifth) time I went back was for the famous Shanghai Mermaid party, an underground, more-or-less-monthly, themed event (usually Paris, Shanghai, Berlin, or New Orleans in the twenties or thirties), where everyone has to dress accordingly. It was a beautifully bizarre experience, riding the subway out to Crown Heights in period attire, wandering down darkened streets in heels, then stepping through the door into a sprawling, whirling, huge space, walls draped with red velvet, tables laden with candles, everyone in hats and suspenders and fans, sequins and rhinestones and fringes, with cigarette girls hawking candy and treats, exotic cocktails and food, and hours and hours of amazing performers: aerialists, fire dancers, musicians, burlesque, and more. The parties start at ten and go until dawn, if not later. It’s an absolutely phenomenal way to spend a Saturday night.

Juliette, photo by Erica Camille

So how did it all get started? Read on for my interview with Juliette, who’s responsible for the whole thing.

Blue Vipers of Brooklyn, photo from shanghaimermaid.com

brooklyn spaces: So how did it all get started?

Juliette: I really had a vision. I just decided I wanted to do a nightclub like Paris in the 1920s. Paris and Berlin and Shanghai all had these very decadent underground club scenes at that time. There was so much turmoil throughout the world, but people who have traditionally been marginalized—artists, intellectuals, gay people, people of color—have historically created underground scenes as a reaction to the mainstream, which then, ironically, takes its cues from the underground. Anyway, at the very beginning, my dear friend Tanya Rynd suggested that i throw some parties in lieu of trying to start an actual nightclub, to see if anyone was interested. For the first party, I think we each sent out fifty emails, and we were really particular about who we invited, because we wanted people who would really get it and appreciate it. And it was amazing. I had friends who had this space in Dumbo, and even though Dumbo hasn’t been dangerous for a long time, at night it’s kind of desolate, and four years ago even more so. People would be walking around going, “Are we in the right place?” and they’d walk through this maze of tagged walls, and then they’d hear music, and they’d walk in and it was just complete glamour, candlelight and chandeliers, the whole thing. It was really unexpected, which for me is part of the magic. You want to feel like you’re in a different time and place. That’s really my goal, to make people feel like they’ve been completely transported.

Lady C, photo by Erica Camille

brooklyn spaces: It’s kind of like a gift you’re giving to people.
Juliette: I don’t think there’s enough glamour in the world, I really don’t. Even though we may not have any money, we certainly can have glamour. If you have talented and creative people around you, you can make anything you want. But it’s definitely a lot of work, you have to be really obsessed to manifest your vision because it’s definitely against all odds, sometimes.

photo from Red Lotus Room’s blog

BANZAI!!!!! co-creator Eric Schmallenberger, photo by Gabi Porter for New York Metromix

brooklyn spaces: So what happened to the Dumbo space?
Juliette: Well, we outgrew it really quickly. Shanghai Mermaid got listed on Nonsense NYC, which is a wonderful list, and Jeff Stark wrote something very nice about it—I think he mentioned that we use real glassware. It was really exciting, but it made the party huge. And the landlords happened to be driving by and they called the cops and the fire department. About a dozen fire trucks and cop cars descended on the space. They walked in and were like, “Oh my god.” But they stayed for like an hour. Amber Ray was performing when they finally turned the lights on and the music off, and everyone started booing. I said, “You know what? You’ll look way cooler if you let her finish her number.” And they said okay. They were really, really cool.

photo by Michael Blase

brooklyn spaces: Did you get the Red Lotus Room right after that?
Juliette: No. We were mobile for awhile, which was so much work. Everything at Shanghai—tables, chairs, tablecloths, bar, chandeliers, curtains, the stage, the lights, the sound—we had to bring all that with us. Then we’d set up for hours, and when it was over, I’d be sweeping the floor in a ball gown at seven in the morning. So I knew I needed my own space, I didn’t want to keep setting up and breaking down. But finding a space in Brooklyn is super hard. I looked for a year and a half. I really wanted Red Hook, I wanted something on the water, I love turn-of-the-century warehouses, but finally I realized I had to be realistic. I like that it’s in Crown Heights, that people have to go a little bit out of the way to get here. I think when you have to work harder for something, you appreciate it more. Like the dress code. I hate to turn people away, but if someone’s going to go spend money and time to create an outfit from another era, I don’t want other people to come in in a polo shirt and jeans. It’s not fair and it breaks the whole illusion.

Trixie Little & the Evil Hate Monkey, photo by Benjamin Mobley

brooklyn spaces: What’s your relationship with the people in the neighborhood?
Juliette: I try to be a part of the community, and I’ve had a great response. I support the neighborhood, I buy everything I can around here. And there’s all these little kids, really nice kids, and they don’t have anything to do, so sometimes I let them come in, and I show them the backstage area and all the costumes, and I let them on the stage. I really want to try to do kids’ workshops or classes here, it’s definitely something the community needs. On the whole, there’s good things and bad things about gentrification. I remember being at Home Depot when we were first building out the space, and this guy said, “I’m so happy white people have moved into this neighborhood.” I said, “You are?” and he said, “Yeah, because now when you call the cops, they come.” That just gave me the chills.

Maine Attraction, photo by Michael Blase

brooklyn spaces: Who are some of your favorite performers to work with?
Juliette: Les Chauds Lapins, they were the very first act at the very first Shanghai Mermaid. I love Hot Sardines, Baby Soda Jazz Band, Blue Vipers of Brooklyn—they were also at the first Shanghai Mermaid. For burlesque performers, I tend to go for people who are costumey and conceptual, like Veronica Varlow, and Maine Attraction, she’s got this great personality, very Josephine Baker. Amber Ray performed at the April in Paris party, when everything was very French and dramatic. Then there’s the fire performers, there’s so many great ones, like Reina Terror, Christine Geiger, Lady C and Flambeaux. And for aerialists I adore Seanna Sharpe, and of course  Anya Sapozhnikova from House of Yes and Lady Circus; she’s another example of someone who’s not only a performer, as I am, but who works her ass off to run her own venue while performing all around town. I’m very impressed with her and her dedication.

BANZAI!!!!! photo by Gabi Porter for New York Metromix

brooklyn spaces: Do you think the exclusive nature of the parties attracts people?
Juliette: Shanghai Mermaid is not exclusive, and I’ve never wanted it to be. Everyone is welcome. It’s just that for survival it had to be really on the down-low. Although lately it’s not so down-low anymore; it’s listed as a venue on Time Out New York, Gothamist just wrote about it, the Village Voice called it the “Best Literally Underground Cabaret Show.”

photo from shanghaimermaid.com

brooklyn spaces: Since this is a Brooklyn blog, tell me your thoughts on being in Brooklyn these days.
Juliette: I very much believe in Brooklyn, in the Brooklyn scene. I think Brooklyn’s really exciting. There’s still a little bit of a Wild West quality here, which I don’t feel like Manhattan has anymore, it’s gone really corporate. The party-throwers in Manhattan, they have PR agents and big websites, they want to do a lot of corporate stuff. I usually stay away from that. There’s definitely money in it, but the thing is, who are you creating it for? Not that people who go to corporate events don’t deserve something fabulous, but it’s just not something I’m going to go after. I guess I’m a purist.

Blue Vipers of Brooklyn, photo by Erica Camille

brooklyn spaces: What’s one of the best, most beautiful memories from the parties?
Juliette: I’ll always remember the very first moment at the very first Shanghai Mermaid when the curtains opened and Les Chauds Lapins were playing, and I looked around and saw all these people dressed so beautifully, and I thought, “We did it, and it’s so lovely!” It really was how I imagined it. That’s a great memory. Opening night at the Red Lotus Room was really exciting too. It’s a tremendous amount of work, but it is super rewarding to be able to do something like this and share it. And I’ve always been very, very blessed to have beautiful wonderful people come. When I walk down the aisle, people grab my arm and say, “Thank you so much for doing this.”

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Like this? Read about more underground party spaces: Rubulad, Newsonic, Gemini & Scorpio loft, The Lab (Electric Warehouse), 12-turn-13, Gowanus Ballroom, Big Sky Works

update, summer 2014: In sad but of course not shocking news, the House of Yes lost their East Williamsburg lease in August 2013. (If you want to take a look back, the Atlantic has an awesome piece on all three incarnations, from Bed-Stuy to Ridgewood to East Williamsburg.)

But why get nostalgic? House of Yes 4.0 will be opening in Bushwick the fall! Want to help make it happen, and get some wild and incredible rewards to boot? Donate to their Kickstarter, and help keep the Brooklyn underground alive.

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I am really overjoyed about this post, because House of Yes is actually my very favorite space in Brooklyn (so far), and one of the spaces that inspired this whole project. It’s an aerialist training facility and performance venue in a huge former ice warehouse, and they put on the most high-energy, high-caliber, innovative and astonishing shows I’ve seen. They make all their costumes onsite and build their own sets, they collaborate with Brooklyn bands for live musical accompaniment, and every show is just spectacular, bristling with staggeringly talented aerialists, trapezists, fire-dancers, contortionists, burlesque acts, singers, and musicians.

Anya Sapozhnikova

Besides putting on phenomenal shows in a fantastic converted warehouse—in one of the most vibrant corners of East Williamsburg, down the block from 3rd Ward, Werdink, Shea Stadium, the former Bushwick Project for the Arts and Bushwick Music Studios, and more—many of the House of Yes gals make up the loose conglomeration of female acrobats Lady Circus, and they are tireless, performing at all the best underground Brooklyn parties and Manhattan cabarets, like Shanghai Mermaid and Café Panache, among many many others. And the mainstream world is taking notice: the Lady Circus performers were featured as a costume-design challenge on the incredibly popular show Project Runway in 2011!

Don’t you want to hear from the woman responsible for it all? Read on for my interview with Anya Sapozhnikova, founder of House of Yes and Lady Circus and crucial fixture in the Brooklyn underground performance scene.

photo from designglut.com

brooklyn spaces: I first heard about House of Yes when it burned down.
Anya: Yeah, that was our first space. The thing about the fire was that it made us realize that people really cared about what we were doing, and the mobilization of the underground scene in Brooklyn and beyond really blew us away. Our friend threw us a benefit party at Pussycat Lounge, and all the underground parties that were happening that night canceled their events and moved everyone there. The benefit was immensely successful, and we went from having nothing—we were all homeless, all of our shit was gone—to being able sign a lease on a new space.

Circus of Circus

brooklyn spaces: Was House of Yes originally conceived as a studio and teaching space, or was it always a performance venue?
Anya: The old space was just “Let’s do this and see what happens.” The new space was always going to be a venue in the evening and a training and rehearsal space during the day. Upstairs we also have a sewing studio, Make Fun. To be able to flourish and produce as much work as we want to, we need every square inch of the space making money all the time. We aren’t like, “Oh, we’re DIY culture, we’re going to dumpster everything.” Sustainability’s great, but we’re really excited about doing high-production-value shows, we want to do the best we possibly can, and we don’t want money holding us back. We have this state-of-the-art facility that enables us to create a show from start to finish, from sitting down with all your friends and working out the concept to having a sold-out closing night. What makes it so beautiful to me is that we concentrate on every single aspect: the costuming, the rehearsals, the movement, the sound, the promotion, everything. To me, live theatre is the most all-encompassing, the most mixed-media way to produce art. So in order for us to do our best, we’re always thinking about how we can generate income so these things can keep happening and we can keep growing.

The Wonderneath

brooklyn spaces: There’s a lot of these types of spaces around, but I feel like House of Yes is more intentional, and the caliber of shows here is higher. Do you think that’s partly because you have such a multifaceted facility?
Anya: I think we’re just really ambitious. There are a lot of different people involved and everyone just brings a huge amount of passion. Everyone involved in the space is so hands-on. We know what we need, there’s always an open dialogue, and it’s just a really tight group of friends who are all really, really ambitious.

New Faux Fashion Show

brooklyn spaces: How many people are involved in the day-to-day running of the space?
Anya: I don’t know. A lot. Nikki and Airin run Sky Box, which is the aerial component of the space, and that’s classes, workshops, training, rehearsals. Tara and Kae, who’s my main partner in the space, they run the sewing studio. Kae and I do the majority of the booking. Hasaan, one of the original founding members, runs the sound studio.

AHOYA, student showcase

brooklyn spaces: How long does it take to put a show together?
Anya: Two weeks.
brooklyn spaces: Seriously?
Anya: Yeah. $piderman! was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, and it was done in two weeks. In two weeks we wrote, produced, directed, cast, made costumes, figured out the craziest lighting you’ve ever seen, everything. It was a huge pain in the ass and it caused a bunch of nervous breakdowns, but I think everyone secretly enjoyed it.

$piderman: Turn on the Lights!

backstage during 2010's Christmas Spectacular

brooklyn spaces: Do you have a favorite show, or one that’s particularly triumphant or special?
Anya: I like them all for different reasons, but I think that the Christmas Spectacular is probably my favorite. For a lot of the people involved, it feels like you have a real family. Me and Kae curate it, and it’s just everyone we know who we think is talented and amazing who we want to hang out with for three weeks straight. People can do whatever the fuck they want, and we kind of guide it and arrange it. I realized it was my favorite show when I was standing backstage and there was an eleven-year-old boy dressed in drag next to a fifty-three-year-old transvestite dressed as a man, and they’re dancing their asses off and I’m holding this giant spotlight, getting ready to go on, and I was just like, “Wow, this is really beautiful, we’re a family, and we’re celebrating this holiday that’s all about family.” It’s kind of really wholesome in a fucked up way. So that’s my favorite show. It’s low pressure, but really high talent, and it’s always good. Airin said it’s entertainment at its worst dressed in its best. High-quality chaos.

AHOYA! student showcase

brooklyn spaces: Being in this amazing corner of Brooklyn, do you have a relationship with the other people in the neighborhood?
Anya: Yeah, absolutely. It’s awesome to see this really accessible gentrification, where it’s not some random guy you’ll never meet building some random building you’ll never live in. Our peers aren’t afraid of becoming entrepreneurs and businesspeople, really pursuing what they want to do and doing it well, doing it in an interesting way that they care about. I love being in this community of business owners and curators and producers who are all young people, we all ride bikes and hang out on rooftops together. It’s like a different kind of grown-up. I really enjoy that.

Amber Dinner Theatre

brooklyn spaces: What are your goals for the future of the space?
Anya: I want to become a New York City institution. I want to make theatre in New York City better. It’s okay for theatre to be really fucking entertaining. I want to create art that’s accessible and meaningful and a really good time too.

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Like this? Read about more performance spaces: Gowanus Ballroom, Big Sky Works, Rubulad, The Muse

Even though I live about ten minutes away from them, I’d never heard of Werdink Screenprinting Boutique or Ninja Pyrate. And maybe you haven’t either—but believe me, that’s going to change. They’ve got  an amazing hybrid space, encompassing a high-end screenprinting studio, a boutique shop selling apparel and skateboards (all printed onsite), a multipurpose event space with a rubber floor and an aerial rig, a DJ setup, and a recording studio in a pirate ship. A pirate ship. And they’re really eager to open the space up to the community, to see what people can do with it.

Who are these amazing people? Matthew is the Werdink screenprinter, and his sister Krisstina and her boyfriend Jeff are still figuring out more amazing ways to use the Ninja Pyrate space. Plus they’re all well connected to the crazy Brooklyn creatives: Werdink did a screenprinting truck for the first three Lost Horizon Night Markets and shares tips with Bushwick Print Lab; Krisstina pals around with one of the girls from House of Yes and Lady Circus who started Make Fun; their space is literally downstairs from Shea Stadium.

Scroll down to hear more from these awesome people!
[all photos in this post by Alix Piorun]

brooklyn spaces: Okay, tell me about Werdink.
Matthew: It’s a screenprinting studio and retail shop, based on high-end development for independent fashion and artists. I work with people who are looking to broaden their horizons, make their stuff bigger. I take my time with my clientele, and I build relationships with them and bond with them and become part of their creative process. I’ve been doing this for years, and I do a wide range of printmaking, so I have a lot to offer. It’s not just making t-shirts; I also do tip-to-tail skateboard printing, and lots of other things. I spent a period of my life working with high-end, bigger names and brands, and I want to be able to give more independent people that same experience.

brooklyn spaces: Who are some people you’re really excited to be working with?
Matthew: My friend Ian Hurst, he has a company called 333Theory, and we’ve been working together for three years now, developing his line. Right now we’re making a bunch of t-shirts, but the t-shirts are a side project for his graphic novels, which are coming out later. There’s Connie Wang, from Iconartistry, who I got to know through Ad Hoc Art. She worked with me here for a few years and has since moved on to start her own print studio. There’s Hannah, she interns here, she’s started a brand called Helplessly Happy. There’s Hull, they’re a metal band, they were actually my first intense project in this space. A lot of those guys work at the Anchored Inn around the corner—we love that place, it’s awesome, everybody should go there and drink. Our friend Tara McManus has a company called 3rd Earth Designs, she has some stuff in my boutique and is always expanding her line. It’s hard to pick favorites, I love everyone I work with.

brooklyn spaces: Okay, so let’s switch to Ninja Pyrate. You guys are doing a bunch of different things in here, right?
Jeff: Yeah, we have a lot of interesting hobbies, so we’re trying to do as much as we can. We want to do different yoga classes, like dubstep yoga, costume yoga, pirate yoga. We have a friend who wants to teach capoeira, and we have an aerial rig. On top of that, we have a lot of friends who spin fire, so we’re going to do some poi and spinning classes, and we’re working on making new kinds of fire-spinning tools.
Krisstina: And also stuff like craft nights, clothing swaps with live screenprinting, skill-building workshops, movie nights.
Matthew: We did a release party for a book I helped work on, Gutterfish, with some people reading poetry and a couple of DJs. We’re also planning to put in a little tea and coffee bar.
Jeff: And the space isn’t just for us. We’re going to have an open house soon, because I want to get people imagining, coming up with ways they could use the space.
Matthew: We’re starting to finish up the projects on the inside, so now I’m thinking about the outside. I want to do a party to get some graffiti up on the wall outside.
brooklyn spaces: The landlords don’t mind?
Matthew: The landlords are so cool! I walk over there and I’m like, “Hey, I know you just spent thousands of dollars putting in this new sidewalk last year, but is it cool if I have the city come tear it up and put in some trees?” And they’re like, “It’s you’re place, do whatever you want. You want trees, get some trees.”

brooklyn spaces: Whose is the recording studio? Is that Ninja Pyrate?
Krisstina: Yeah, I do music recording. And our band, Yar, uses it.
brooklyn spaces: And why a pirate ship?
Krisstina: The pirate ship is all found wood. I found it in the hallway of my apartment. I almost walked past it, because, you know, bedbugs. But then I was like, “Wait a minute! I’m a pirate, those are skeletons, this was meant to be.” I called Jeff and said, “Honey, I got you a present from the garbage.”
Jeff: It was the best present I’ve ever gotten.
Matthew: About 80 percent of this place was built with recycled materials. Everything in the boutique is reused. Build It Green is freaking rad. I can’t go there without wanting to spend hundreds of dollars.
Jeff: Krisstina really wanted a playground floor, and I was like “We’re never going to find that.”
Krisstina: And then one of the times we were at Build It Green, I was like “You wouldn’t happen to have rubber flooring here, would you?” And they totally did. We had to dig it out from under the snow in the back parking lot. It was filthy.

brooklyn spaces: Do you think places like this are what’s making Brooklyn what it is right now? Or is Brooklyn like this, and people come and find their place here?
Matthew: That’s a good question. I think it’s a bit of both. As soon as I came to this neighborhood, I was like, “This is where I belong.” I never want to leave Brooklyn.
Krisstina: In Brooklyn there are so many creative people who are really motivated, and who all want to share tips and ideas. It helps to pool your resources; you never know how far you can go when you do that. Space is rare in New York, and expensive, so people have to come together to make it work. And people in the Bushwick area are so supportive. People make an effort to check out what you’re doing and help you with it.
Jeff: I love our friends in Brooklyn, and even people who don’t have this sort of space know we’re here, so if they need somewhere to spread out and do something, they can come to us. We’ve got a lot of creative friends who need more space to be loud, and this is a place they can do that. We’re just trying to help people get together and do things.

Like this? Read about more art & event spaces: Gowanus Ballroom, Arch P&D, Hive NYC, Big Sky Works, Egg & Dart Club

Wau Wau Sisters at Big Sky Works

When I was in college in New Jersey, we used to come to Brooklyn to hunt for weirdness as much as we could. The first time I came to Galapagos was probably in 1998, when it was still in Williamsburg, and I saw some totally insane shows there. One of the best was the Wau Wau Sisters (Tanya Gagné and Adrienne Truscott), an “acroband” who wear crazy costumes and sing ribald songs while balancing on each others’ shoulders or sharing a trapeze. They were sensational.

Tanya, photo by Maximus Comissar

Where are they now? Still performing, of course, mostly in the UK and Australia. But when they’re home, Tanya—who happens to be one of the warmest, most exuberant ladies I’ve ever met—runs a circus school, Trapeze Loft, in an incredible community art and performance venue, Big Sky Works. At Trapeze Loft you can take classes in things like partner acrobatics, hula-hoop, trapeze, wire-walking, silks, cloud swing, and contortion. And at Big Sky Works you can see an insane variety of crazy, crazy, fabulous shows, with acrobatics, circus freakshow stunts, live music, projections, pie fights, clowns, burlesque, drag, and just all manners of creative weirdness. I actually got to see the Wau Wau Sisters do a farewell show there before they headed overseas, and they were even more sensational than I remembered. I’ve since been back for a handful of events—including Coney Island–based Mermaid Musee, the spectacular Morgan O’Kane‘s CD release party, and a benefit for Vic Thrill—each more weirdly wonderful than the last. Big Sky also collaborates with lots of amazing local groups, including Funny Bone Theatre, a comedy-based after-school program for kids.

Head over there for some old Williamsburg–style freakiness as soon as you can. But first, check out my interview with Tanya!

from Great Aerial Reef, 2006

brooklyn spaces: Have you been a performer your whole life?
Tanya: I grew up doing theatre and gymnastics and all that, but I don’t come from a show-biz family. I started studying circus when I moved to New York in my early twenties, and then I moved to France and Spain and San Francisco and trained really hard for a few years, and then I came back to New York and opened the Trapeze Loft in ’99. I started off giving private lessons, and I was slammed. We were a little bit ahead of this grand circus curve; at that point there was no Elizabeth Streb, no Circus Warehouse, no Sky Box, nothing. Now there’s so many spaces, which is wonderful.

Miss Ekaterina as the world's most terrifying unicorn

brooklyn spaces: Is it a good community? Do you guys all share tips?
Tanya: I definitely check them all out, and I know a lot of the teachers over at House of Yes and Lady Circus. A lot of the students take classes at all the spaces, and that’s cool because they can see what everyone has to offer. I’m kind of jealous of the students now, because when I came to New York there was only one person to train with, Irena Gold, this crazy old Russian lady who trained for Big Apple Circus.

brooklyn spaces: Why did you move the Trapeze Loft into Big Sky Works?

Tanya: I wanted to expand the possibilities. The Trapeze Loft was about half this size, so you couldn’t have a class with more than four or five people. This space is really ideal. The ceiling is seventeen feet high, and you can rig anywhere. I knew it would be a lot of work, because when I first got it, it was just an empty space. But I decided to take the risk. I think there’s a need for it in the neighborhood, there’s not enough underground, kooky things going on, you know? So I got the space and drew up a really basic plan. And then one of my students who’s a welder was like, “I’ll weld the railing!” And one of my friends who’s a carpenter was like, “I’ll build the stage!” Janet Clancy and Kris Anton, who are my technical directors now, and the most awesome people in the world, they helped install all the lights, sound, and rigging. It was like a tiny village all coming together. It was really nice seeing all these people saying, “We want to help make this happen.” It came together really fast, like within six weeks. It was a ton of work, but we kicked ass.

photo from Big Sky Works' Facebook

brooklyn spaces: Do you choreograph all the shows yourself?
Tanya: It depends. Some of the shows I choreograph, but the one we had last weekend was a circus cabaret, everyone coming with an act, everything from aerial to clown to juggling. Other times people will come in with their own show all ready to go. The space is open to whatever. I’ve had friends shooting music videos, my friend had his wedding here, another friend had an art opening, another wants to do a pie-fight show, clowns running around with shaving cream and whipped cream pies, and I’m like, “Yes! This is your place!” I want any kind of shows, whether it’s rock and roll shows, puppet shows, dance parties—whatever the fuck you want to try out, bring it here, we’ll see how we can make it happen. It’s not just a circus space. I want it to be seen as a funhouse. That’s the kind of New York I want.

photo from Big Sky Works' Facebook

brooklyn spaces: Tell me about some cool shows you’ve had here.
Tanya: The last few were the circus cabaret shows, which bring in a great mix of people from the professional circus scene. There’s people who teach at Circus Warehouse, TSNY, Sky Box, there’s people from LAVA, an all-women’s dance and circus troupe I used to be a part of. It’s a great way to try out a new act and meet new people in the community. Usually I have a host; among them have been amazing performers like Circus Amok‘s Jennifer Miller, Miss Saturn, and Murray Hill. Recently Butt Kapinski, she’s like a private eye investigator clown, put on an amazing show with a live jazz band. Some other great performers I’ve had here are Ambrose Martos, Chris Rozzi, Magic Brian, Amy G, Amazing Amy, Vic Thrill, Lone Wolf & Cub, Mermaid Musee, Miss Ekaterina, and members of Suspended Cirque and the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus A couple of weeks ago one of my teachers did a student showcase. My friend BAMiAM.tv is going to start putting on a monthly party with bands, aerialists, video projections.

Corn Mo, photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: Do you think being in Brooklyn influences a space like this, or that spaces like this have an impact on Brooklyn?
Tanya: Yes, yes, yes. When I moved into the neighborhood in 1992, I lived in a place called Keep Refrigerated, near the Mustard Factory, and there were so many crazy abandoned buildings. This place was full of crack and cars on fire and hookers. So if you wanted to put on a show, you just went into a abandoned building and put on a show. Obviously that doesn’t exist anymore, that period’s over. But I feel like anyone can still put on a show, you don’t need a million dollars or a fancy producer and director. In that sense I think Brooklyn has definitely influenced how I look at making shows. Just because all the fancy high-rises and people with money are moving into the neighborhood, that doesn’t mean this place can’t be kooky anymore, and it doesn’t mean we all have to leave. It’s still awesome here, just in a different way. I want to keep some freakiness, and I think the new people moving in want the freaky shit too. That’s why I want the space to get more visibility, because I feel like it’s still pretty underground, and I want to get people here to see all this great stuff.

***

Like this? Read about more performance spaces: House of Yes, Red Lotus Room, The Muse, Cave, Rubulad, Gowanus Ballroom, Chez Bushwick

This post is a cheat, I know. The Idiotarod is not a space, and it’s not even always (or only) in Brooklyn. But it is so ludicrous, so fantastically silly, that I don’t care. There’s so many things like this—Lost Horizon Night Market, Improv Everywhere, Newmindspace, Fluff’s Stuff—silliness and spectacle just for the sake of it, which is what makes this the best, funnest place to be. It’s part of the essence of Brooklyn for me.

image via nileguide.com

So what’s the Idiotarod? Well, as their website explains: “The Iditarod is the famous long-distance race in which yelping dogs tow a sled across Alaska. The Idiotarod is pretty much the same thing, except that instead of dogs, it’s people, instead of sleds, it’s shopping carts, and instead of Alaska, it’s New York City.” How this works is that teams of five people pick a theme, steal acquire a shopping cart, dress themselves and their cart up accordingly, and race from checkpoint to checkpoint, usually for about five miles and over at least one bridge. Sabotage is encouraged, as is throwing food or snow, and, of course, drinking. No one knows where the race will begin or end, or where the checkpoints will be, until the last possible minute. Prizes are awarded at a secret afterparty for things like fastest team, best costumes, best sabotage, etc.

photo by Colin Colfer

Want to hear more from people who have done it? Check out my interview with Alix and Leila! (That’s them in the top photo on this page, Alix on the right and Leila on the left, part of team Andrew W.K.art in Idiotarod 2012.)

picture by pixietart, via Gothamist

brooklyn spaces: When was your first race?
Leila: I did it for the first time in 2007, and our theme was the Cold War Kids. Half of us were dressed as Americans and half as Russians, and we divided the cart in half, and in one half we had a vodka bottle and the Communist Manifesto, and in the other we had an old McDonald’s carton that we found on the street, and then I took a dish towel and covered it with duct tape and wrote “The Iron Curtain” on it and hung it on the front. In 2008 I was Jem, and 2009 we were the Oregon Trail of Death. In 2010 I took off, which I’m glad I did, because Alix says that was the coldest day of her life. This year we did it together, and we were Clam Rock.
Alix: I first did it in 2008, and we were the Boston Tea Party. We had wet teabags to throw at people—there was a lot of food throwing then. Our cart had a Sam Adams picture on it, and we decorated it as a boat. In 2009 we were The Price Is Wrong, Bitch! In 2010 we were Gilligan’s Island. I got my boyfriend to do it, and two other friends. I was like, “It’s going to be really fun!” And then it was just the coldest day ever. I only had fingerless gloves on and I could not feel my fingers once we started running. We’re running, my eyes are tearing and I can’t see, snot is flying. My friends were like “Why the fuck would you do this? This is not fun at all.”

photo by Tod Seelie, vie Brooklyn Vegan

brooklyn spaces: Tell me about the actual mechanics of the race.
Leila: Okay, the mechanics of the race are stupid, it’s incredibly disorganized. It takes a lot of effort to even figure out when the race is happening.
Alix: They don’t really have much information on the website. It used to be run by COBRA, Carts of Brooklyn Racing Association, and then I guess they “sold” it to Corporation X. Or no, COBRA gave it to Team Danger Zone, and then they gave it to Corporation X.
Leila: Once you’ve figured out when it is, you have to figure out how the sign-up works, because the fact that you’ve done it in the past doesn’t mean they’ll assume you might be interested again and tell you about it. And they make it really hard for you to sign up. This year we had to complete an eight-page form filled with stupid questions, which we had to get notarized—we faked the notary. Then they text or email to say where it’s going to leave from, and everybody knows it’s a lie. That used to be to mislead the police, but now it’s just tradition. You have to wait until like 8:00 on the morning of the race to find out where to go. One year we started in Chinatown, one year we started in Queens, one year we started at fucking like 63rd and York or something.
Alix: Every race goes over at least one bridge, so it’s cross-borough. But this year there was a lot of snow still on the ground, and I think that they changed it around at the last minute, because we just stayed in Brooklyn. Anyway, you have to go to four or five checkpoints, and you have to complete stupid tasks before they tell you where to go next. Sometimes you can leave early if you bribe the people there, so a lot of people bring mini bottles of booze for that.

photo from Kotaku

brooklyn spaces: What are some of the tasks?
Alix: This year, one was you had to blow a feather and keep it in the air longer than the other team, or there’s races around the bar, or you have to find someone and have them give you something.
Leila: Sabotage used to be a big part of it. One time we were going across the bridge into Queens, and people were pouring dishwashing soap down the bridge, and everybody started doing the thing like you see in cartoons, where people are like “Whooooaaaa!” with their legs.
Alix: There was another sabotage where someone had a bowling ball they would put it in people’s carts. They put it in ours and we didn’t notice. We were running, going, “Why is this thing so heavy?” And with the sabotage, you never know if you’re going to the right place. The first year I did it there was a fake checkpoint, they just said, “You have to stand here for twenty minutes, this is the first checkpoint.” Some people were like, “This is fake, we’re leaving!” and then you’re like, “Well, is that a sabotage?” You can’t trust anyone.

photo by Colin Colfer

brooklyn spaces: What are some of your favorite carts that you’ve seen?
Leila: The Roman Chariot was really good. They had like forty people, including Remus and Romulus, and there were all these people in matching costumes, and this triumphant Roman Empire–style music
Alix: My first year there was a team that I think was called Two Girls One Cart. They had two blowup dolls and this huge tub of poop-looking stuff, and they were throwing the pudding-poop at people. When we were running over the Manhattan Bridge, there was this huge goop of pudding just dripping down the railing of the bridge.

photo by Matthew Bradley via geekoutnewyork

brooklyn spaces: Does anyone get in trouble?
Leila: One time when we were outside of a checkpoint, a cop drove by very slowly, and shouted over his bullhorn, “Please at least try to not let me see that you are drinking in public!” And everyone was like “Okay, we’ll try.”

photo by Aaron Short, via Brooklyn Paper

brooklyn spaces: And so is it the funnest thing you do all year?
Alix: I love it. If you have a really good cart design, and other people have really good cart designs, it’s great. Just looking at the carts is really cool. When you line up at the starting point, everyone’s checking out all the other carts and taking pictures.
Leila: It’s also a cool way to see neighborhoods you don’t usually get to see.
Alix: It’s the only time I ever run, too. It’s like a five-mile run every year. So yeah, it’s fun. And it’s a tradition. It’s this thing we do every year that we get to amaze our friends with.

***

Like this? Read about more public art spectacle: Lost Horizon Night Market, Dumpster Pools, Broken Angel, Bring to Light, Cathedral of Junk

Gowanus Ballrooom is one of my very favorite spaces, one I can’t help updating and re-writing about again and again. (In fact, check out my article from their Fall 2011 show “Paint Works” on Gowanus Your Face Off!) The space, most of the time, is home to Serett Metalworks, but three or four times a year it gets transformed into a massive art spectacle. They’re doing so much to make a home for emerging and underground artists in New York, and every one of their shows is spectacular—and necessarily ambitious, given the sheer scope: the Ballroom is 16,000 square feet on two levels, with 50-foot ceilings. You have to slink down a super-sketchy dark alley on the canal to get to it, but oh, man, is it worth it.

The group shows feature outrageously great art from up to fifty  artists at a time, including huge metal sculptures, lush photographs, hyperreal paintings, abstract assemblages, quirky dioramas, stained-glass windows, woven cloth streamers, giant wooden installations you can climb around in, collages you can run your fingers through, intricate ink drawings, shifting projections, and more. Plus live entertainment! Aerialists like Seanna Sharpe (in her first performance since her stunt on the Williamsburg Bridge), fire dancers like Lady C and Flambeaux Fire, and of course bands, including Crooks & Perverts, Les Bicyclettes Blanches, Apocalypse Five and Dime, Yula and the eXtended Family (from Hive NYC), and Morgan O’Kane, the absolute most phenomenal banjo player you’ve probably never heard (unless you ride the L train a lot). At the 2011 Art & Architecture Show, he played past 2 a.m., almost two hours of just the best music ever, and I haven’t seen so much foot-stomping, arm-flailing, whooping joy since… well, since the last time I saw Morgan play, I guess.

2011 Art & Architecture show

Crooks & Perverts, photo by Megan K O'Byrne

Q&A with Josh, the Ballroom’s founder, and Ursula, art show curator

brooklyn spaces: Give me a quick history of the space.
Josh: I run Serett Metalworks, and I moved the shop here a year ago from Nostrand Avenue. This is twice the space I need, but it was the bottom of the economy crash, and when I saw the space I knew that I would use it for other things besides metalwork. It’s a fucking beautiful shit hole, I love it. It doesn’t make sense for me to run a metal shop here, because you can’t heat it in the winter, there’s always water leaks, and it gets too hot in the summer. But we deal with it. We build weird art and architectures structures, so the people who work here, it kind of inspires them to do better work, to be happier about their job. That’s a big part of it, just the beauty of this insane old place. It used to be a steel mill, a boatyard, a cannonball factory, a chemical factory. The history here is ridiculous.

photo by me

brooklyn spaces: In the metal shop, is it all your projects? Do other people do their projects here too?
Josh: It’s mainly our shop where we fabricate our stuff, but I also work with all these different groups. Someone comes and says, “Hey man, I need lockdowns for this WTO protest, can you help me build them?” Or like Swimming Cities, a bunch of fucking hippies who are building pontoon boats they can collapse, ship to India, and sail five hundred miles down the Ganges River. How fucking cool is that? I want to support those fucking maniacs, because that is awesome.

photo by Ursula Viglietta

brooklyn spaces: What made you start doing art shows?
Josh: I always wanted the space to be dedicated to art and architecture and engineering, mostly because architects and engineers, their social life is so fucking boring. But it’s a really interesting group of people doing really interesting work, and I like the idea of art and architecture and engineering together, because there’s a lot of aspects of engineering and architecture that are art. So the idea was to have a space for all three. We did the first Art & Architecture show in early 2010. The whole thing was thrown together in two weeks, and it went real well. Then we did another one about six months later that was really successful and really fun. But I learned it’s a lot of fucking work putting on a show, it’s an insane amount of coordination, and the person who’s doing the coordination loses their mind not at the end, but halfway through.
Ursula: I stayed pretty sane.

Flambeaux Fire, photo by me

Josh: Yeah, I’m getting there. I’m just finishing the story. Anyway, it blew my mind how much work it was. So I was like, all right, if our next show is going to be twice as big, it’s going to be a major ordeal. So I asked Ursula to get involved, and she came in and took the steering wheel, coordinating, organizing, categorizing, social working, all this stuff that has to come with an intense art show. And it was a great move, she really handled the stress well. There’s a lot of fucking stress involved. We pick people who do great art, but when you do that, you’re going to be dealing with some characters. That’s where the social-working aspect comes in.
Ursula: I’m actually training to become a social worker, so it worked out well. I think my background is just the right balance of art and psychology. It was a challenge and it was fun. I like doing really difficult things. If I see something that looks like you can’t do it, I’m like, “Okay, let’s figure it out!” I met a lot of really great people, and it was pretty inspiring for me as an artist.

Morgan O'Kane, photo by me

brooklyn spaces: What happens to the metal shop during a show?
Josh: Believe it or not, moving the whole shop out of the way only takes three or four hours. And while the art show is up, we’re still fucking welding and grinding. All my guys love it. Setting up for this show, every single one of them came and worked fifteen, twenty hours for free, just because they loved it.
Ursula: Of course, they snuck their own artwork in as well. I’d come in and be like, “Where did that come from?”

photo by me

brooklyn spaces: How do you think Brooklyn affect a space like this, or how does a space like this affect the future of art in Brooklyn?
Josh: The beauty of the Gowanus Canal is that it’s now a Superfund site, and that means that 2,000 feet from the edge of the water, in any direction, you can’t build housing or food service of any type. So this area is going to be a great place for about ninety years. There’s always going to be this nice mix of industrial industry and art studios. It’s not going to be McKibben Street—puke my brains out.
Ursula: There’s also an artistic community here that’s a little bit hidden, so it’s a really nice spot to have a new exhibition space, because we’re not competing with what’s going on in Williamsburg or Chelsea. It’s a place for emerging artists to do what they want, and it’s huge. I mean, to be able to invite people who do the kind of large-scale installations that we had, and to tell them, literally: “You’ve got two weeks. Build something.” Not many places can do that. Especially when you’re dealing with artists who don’t have a name, and you’re just trusting them. So I think that’s something that we can offer to the neighborhood, and to the art community in general.
Josh: I started off working for Cooper Union, working with a lot of pretty big-name artists, and I was really turned off by the art world, how nasty it was, the money, everything was just politics and crap. This space is great because we can do it our way. We just fill it full of cool shit, and people fucking love it.

Lady C, photo by Megan K O'Byrne

brooklyn spaces: Do you have any advice for other people who want to take on a project like this?
Josh: Just call us. You got something crazy? You think you have schizophrenia? That’s beautiful. Call us. We like that.

***

Like this? Read about more art & events spaces: Monster Island, Big Sky Works, Red Lotus Room, Gemini & Scorpio loft, House of Yes, Cave, Rubulad, Vaudeville Park, 12-turn-13, Werdink / Ninja Pyrate

Okay, the Lost Horizon Night Market isn’t exactly a space, it’s more an idea contained in many, many spaces. But it’s such a spectacularly fun idea—and several of the awesomest nights I’ve had in my ten years living in New York—I couldn’t possibly not cover it.

The Night Market is a crazy guerilla art event, masterminded by Mark Krawczuk and Kevin Balktick (interview with Kevin below!). Every few months, dozens of people rent box trucks, make them over into interactive art installations, park them on an empty block in a desolate corner of Brooklyn, then roll up the doors and invite people in to play. The whole event only lasts about four hours, and then the trucks drive away and it’s like nothing ever happened. Melissa, who did the Campfire Truck with her art collective, Blood Dumpster, said, “The whole concept reminds me of gypsy caravans or traveling circuses in the way that they would roam from town to town, set up shop for the day, and then be gone by morning.”

photo by Maximus Comissar

At the Night Market in March 2011, some of the trucks I played in were: The Teapot Dome Disaster, where we all sat around a long table and were served green tea; Granny’s Attic, dense with clothes and dishes and books and detritus, all for the taking (I got a plate and a scarf!); Bass Tsunami Truck, where I walked along suspended planks and my whole body vibrated with the pumping bass; Space Truck, filled with fog, where moonmen urged us to “drink of the body of space” while proffering a goblet of punch; the Petting Zoo and BBQ Truck, in which, after cozying up to some very lifelike papier-mâché cows and pigs, we were served delicious cubes of barbecued pork; and the Smash Truck, where lucky participants went behind plexiglass and donned goggles to smash up old electronics with a hammer. Some trucks I missed: the Hot Tub Truck (yes, for swimming in), the Strip Truck (yup, with actual strippers), the Boxing Truck (with a ring and costumes for the competitors), and so much more.

The Big Quiz Thing, photo by Maximus Comissar

According to Melissa, “making a truck pushed me to think outside my normal boundaries. This was trying to immerse not just one person, like most art, but a large group of people into a different setting, and to play on the expectations of what they would find in the back of a truck.” The possibilities really are endless.

Noah, who did the Big Quiz Thing, a spinoff of his company of the same name, said, “This is the kind of thing we live in NYC for. I’m always amazed how much effort people put into things like this, expecting no financial reward. It renews your faith in the human race, and in the positive power of art.” I couldn’t agree more!

photo by Michael Blase

brooklyn spaces: What was the genesis of such a crazy project?
Kevin: Mark saw this pickup truck with a pagoda thing on top at Burning Man, and he thought they were serving sushi. It turned out that they weren’t, but he thought it was great and wanted to do something like it. There’s an event called Decompression that the New York Burning Man community puts on here, and he decided to do it there. I was working that night, and I was on the radio, and someone announced, “By the way, I would strongly suggest that everyone check out the secret Japanese noodle restaurant running out of a truck in the parking lot.” And, lo and behold, there was a fully functioning ten-seat restaurant serving freshly made noodles, running out of this rental truck. Mark did that a few more times, once in front of Rubulad, once in Dumbo, bringing the truck to different parties. And then we started thinking, “Let’s do an event where everything is in trucks!” The first official symposium for the Night Market was held in a truck parked behind a building in Dumbo, and the first Night Market was three or four blocks from there, during the Dumbo Arts Under the Bridge weekend about a year and a half ago. We had about ten trucks, and it was the only Night Market that will ever happen where every person got to see every truck. This past one is the fifth we’ve had in New York. San Francisco has had two. There are other cities that are interested in picking it up, too. It’s turned into a really nice project. And it started with Mark and the noodle truck at Decompression.

outside the Boxing Truck, photo by me

brooklyn spaces: I tried to get into the noodle truck, but the line was too long.
Kevin: Yeah, it gets pretty brutal.
brooklyn spaces: But they did a good job, they had someone standing outside giving haiku assignments to keep the masses entertained.
Kevin: That’s something we just learned. One of the San Francisco Markets had an Alice in Wonderland truck, and there was a guy at the back of the lift-gate telling riddles, and whoever answered the riddle got to go in, whether they’d showed up an hour ago or five seconds ago. That was the dawn of the line-based entertainment. I’ve got to do something for my truck next time, because I always have a line, and people are always standing there looking unhappy.
brooklyn spaces: Because especially as it gets later, you start to panic, since there’s so much left that you haven’t seen yet.
Kevin: Well there’s no way to see all of the trucks at this point. In theory if you spent exactly six minutes in each truck or whatever you could do it, but that’s kind of pointless.

inside the Teapot Dome Disaster, photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: How did you publicize it at the beginning?
Kevin: We didn’t. And the reason for that is because it’s an event with a very finite capacity. We’ve always said that the rule of thumb is: “Don’t invite anyone you wouldn’t invite to a party in your home.”

Circus Truck, photo by me

brooklyn spaces: As the originator of the event, how much authority do you bring to it? How much do you have to do?
Kevin: Technically speaking, we have no authority. These are all things that happen in public places, so from a certain perspective, we can’t tell anyone what to do. The planning really consists of getting our friends together and encouraging people to do trucks, helping them conceptualize and things like that, setting up the meetings and symposia, and then Mark and I drive around a lot and look for places that we feel would work right. It’s actually a sort of very reasonable amount of planning, because everyone is totally self-contained. It’s just not a ton of work for something that creates a lot of joy for a lot of people. Everyone involved does a little bit of work, but no one has to give their life up to make sure one of these things happens.

Campfire Truck, photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: What have been some of your favorite trucks?
Kevin: I’ve actually seen fewer trucks than most patrons, since I’m often presiding over my own. But some of the most memorable for me have been the Surveillance Truck, the Sleep EZ Motor Inn, the Hot Tub Truck, the Strip Truck, Make It Happen, the Smash Truck, and, of course, the Lost Horizon Noodle Bar.

brooklyn spaces: What are some you’d still like to do or see?
Kevin: There are so many ideas out there. My favorite clever idea that no one has done yet is the Needle in a Haystack.

Pillow Talk Truck, photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: Any final thoughts?
Kevin: The Night Market gives people a platform to realize projects without having to worry about renting a venue or promoting themselves. It’s a forum for DIY creativity and entertainment. We believe that it’s a nicer world when everyone can create with and learn from one another instead of relying on the world of commerce to tell you what to do and who to meet. We didn’t invent and certainly don’t own the idea of truck-based entertainment. Anyone can do this; you don’t have to wait for us to tell you when the next one is going to be. Rent a truck. Do something neat. Invite your friends. Have fun.

***

Like this? Read about more public art & spectacle: Dumpster Pools, Broken Angel, Idiotarod, Bring to Light, Cathedral of Junk

update, Aug 2011: Macro|Sea, the brains behind this amazing project, are at it again. In conjunction with 3rd Ward, Artists Wanted, The Danger, and chashama, they’re putting on The Palms, “a late summer ode to the Boca Raton Resort Pools of the 1940s (with more music, spectacle and hedonism).” It’s not actually in Brooklyn, but I headed to Queens to see it, with Leila of everydaytrash, of course (read her take on it here). I thought it was totally fun! DJs and lounge chairs and fancy cocktails and a lobster roll truck—and, of course, the pools, which are pretty amazing to behold. Here’s a few pix by Maximus Comissar (but with my crappy camera).

***

My brilliant friend Leila, one of my main blogging inspirations, writes an amazing garbage blog called everydaytrash.com. In 2009, she and two other trashies (visible trash and Ruby Reusable) started Decorative Dumpster Day, “the biennial holiday during which we take a moment to think about where we are depositing our waste by posting photos on blogs of decorated trash receptacles,” and this year she invited me to participate. Of course the first thing I thought of was the Dumpster Pools, which I’ve read about, but sadly never got to see. It’s one of the projects that caused the idea for Brooklyn Spaces to start percolating in my head, though, and I’m happy to pay tribute to a fantastically cool idea.

photo from current.com

ReadyMade Magazine broke the story. Inspired by a similar project in Georgia by Curtis Crowe of Pylon, in 2009 a trio of designers called Macro|Sea (Jocko Weyland, David Belt, and Alix Feinkind) decided to create functional guerilla art by repurposing Dumpsters into swimming pools. According to the group, the point of the project was to show that “with not too much expense, you can creatively reuse what is basically considered urban detritus and make something really cool and fun and also fairly easy to put together.” The Dumpsters were donated by a construction company, and then cleaned, sealed, lined, and filled with water—all in only twelve days. The pools opened on July 4th, 2009, and the group held very exclusive, invite-only pool parties all summer in a rented lot on the Gowanus Canal, which, in addition to the three pools, featured a BBQ grill, lounge chairs, a changing cabana, and a bocce ball court.

photo from superforest.org

In August 2010, the project was replicated in Midtown Manhattan, by invitation from Mayor Bloomburg. Macro-Sea has future plans to take the project on the road and set up Dumpster pools in strip malls all across the country, starting in Atlanta. With such a terrific intersection of practical reuse, summer fun, and serious silliness, the Dumpster Pools were a perfect Brooklyn summer project well worth sharing with the rest of the country.

pools under construction (photo from ramblinworker.com)

photo from readymade.com

Read more about the Dumpster Pools: ReadyMade, Inhabit, New York Times, Gawker, Brokelyn, Gothamist

Like this? Read about more public art & spectacle: Bring to Light, Lost Horizon Night Market, Broken Angel, Idiotarod, Cathedral of Junk

all photos by Maximus Comissar

Newsonic was terrific. It was way way out at the edge of South Williamsburg, virtually unmarked, and a complete shock when you walk in. Just an absolutely vibrant space, full of découpaged furniture and great art and twinkling lights and  linked televisions playing crazy video montages and a bookshelf made from a hollowed-out Coke machine. It had a lovely chill vibe and good music and just incredibly nice people.

Over the years, it was inhabited by about twenty different people, primarily musicians and artists, and they just quietly threw amazing shows and parties for over a decade. With hardly any web presence, they were totally underground, spreading the word through NonsenseNYC and a handful of party lists. Check out  my interview below with Brian and Seth Misterka, who was there from the beginning.

brooklyn spaces: Tell me a bit about the history of the space.
Seth: We found it in the back of the Village Voice classifieds, and it was just an empty warehouse. It was really a blank canvas; the landlord gave us totally free reign to create whatever we wanted to. My original partners were a fellow named Massa, who was working for Francis Ford Coppola as an assistant, and my friend Jeremy, who worked for MTV and played in bands, and I was working at Miramax and playing in bands. We were all musicians, and we were all involved in either film or television, so we built the space out to be a music venue from the start. It’s the perfect environment for music, because our neighbor on one side is an auto mechanic, the other is a grocery store, and below us is an office, so we can play music basically any time without bothering anybody. There could be a raging party in here with a hundred people or more, and from the street it’s as if nothing’s happening at all. So it’s like this little secluded artist colony in the middle of the industrial part of Chasidic Williamsburg, this really mystical neighborhood.

brooklyn spaces: Were you putting on shows from the very beginning?
Seth: From the very beginning. The space had a built-in stage from its days as a factory, so we framed it out and started throwing shows, and they immediately were so much fun and so successful that we just kept doing it.
Brian: In the three years I’ve been here, I’ve never been to a party where there hasn’t been just a completely good vibe all around. Everybody loves it here; it’s impossible not to enjoy the space. It brings out the best in people, it really does.
Seth: It’s kind of an out-of-the-way destination, it’s a place that you have to hear about it and then make a point of coming to, and so because it’s not the kind of space that you’d just be passing by, it gives it a kind of a special nature.

brooklyn spaces: So why are you guys moving out?
Seth: The landlord just wants to shuffle things around. It really reflects the broader change in the northern part of Williamsburg, with its expansion of real estate and population; that’s also happening down here. This building is going to be turned into offices. You know, money talks and the artists walk.

brooklyn spaces: But you’ve definitely nurtured a lot of artists through here.
Seth: Absolutely, yeah. There’s been so many different phases of the place, and everybody has brought a different vibe. We’ve found so many great, creative people over the years, and they’ve all contributed different things to the space, which has allowed it to take on the character it has. In addition to the parties, I’ve also had a recording studio here, and I’ve recorded all sorts of bands. My band is Dynasty Electric, and we’ve also recorded a lot of big indie bands from the 2000s, like Battles, Parts & Labor, Shy Child, and El Guapo, as well as a lot of jazz records.
Brian: Seth also recorded two records with Brian Chase from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and they’re planning on recording a third with a jazz duo they have, Brian Chase and Seth Misterka Duo.

brooklyn spaces: How would you describe the kinds of shows you put on?
Seth: Usually it’s a laboratory kind of show, with four or five bands and DJs. It’s a good platform for people to play, a good opportunity to play in a more relaxed environment and for a bigger crowd than would just be hanging out at the clubs.
Brian: Seth makes very eclectic picks. You’ll have a dance band, then you’ll have an indie band, then you’ll have a raga band, and then you’ll have these old guys who play for, like, what band was it?
Seth: One time the drummer from Saturday Night Live, his band came down.
Brian: And they had so many instruments! It was insane. There’s always a different atmosphere, a different thing, and it’s all connected into one night.
Seth: The thing with Newsonic—which is also the name of my record label—the idea has always been about the spectrum of sound, new sound, whatever it is, regardless of genre. Because I’ve been a working musician and have that access and connections to so many great musicians, the parties have become this secret party for musicians. Great musicians just want to come here and play, not for the money or whatever, but for the experience, just to be part of this energy that’s happening down here. We’ve always kept it on the lowdown because it was kind of amazing that we were able to throw parties for ten years without any trouble from the neighborhood or anything, and we didn’t want to jinx our run. But now that it’s ending, we just want to celebrate and show off the space while we have it, and to document it. We knew something cool was happening here, so we want to capture it like a time capsule and share it.

***

Like this? Read about more underground party spaces: Rubulad, Red Lotus Room, The Lab (Electric Warehouse), Bushwick Project for the Arts, 12-turn-13, Gemini & Scorpio loft

photo from the New York Times

neighborhood: bed-stuy | space type: parties & art space | active since: 1993 | links: none (sorry!)

update December 2011: Rubulad is moving! After  nine years in South Williamsburg and six in Bed-Stuy, this amazing space is hunting for a new home. And they’ve just completed a down-to-the-wire Kickstarter campaign, raising over $35k to help them on their way. It remains to be seen where they’ll go, but it’s clear this vital community will continue to grow and inspire creative culture for years to come.

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Rubulad—along with House of Yes, the 123 Community Center, and a handful of others—is what inspired me to start this project in the first place. For fifteen years, Rubulad has been an incubator of creative art and culture in New York; it’s one of the oldest, longest-running paeans to cultural experimentation, wild beauty, art for the sake of art. The influence of the space on Brooklyn’s creative class is impossible to overstate.

photo by E.A.R.

Rubulad is a huge, stunning, two-floor warehouse on the Bed-Stuy / Crown Heights border, and is both notorious and revered for the massive themed parties they’ve been hosting for over a decade. The events include installation art, eclectic performances, film screenings, and musicians, and attract a diverse crown, the majority of whom dress up in elaborate costumes to fit the themes.

photo by E.A.R.

Remnants of every one of the parties still adorn every inch of visible space—the walls, ceilings, rooftop, furniture, backyard, and garden are teeming with a dizzying array of decorations, from framed shellacked jellybeans to glitter-painted stuffed animals to a giant birdcage with a carousel horse inside.

photo by E.A.R.

In addition to the parties, Rubulad has also been home to many more intimate events, like kids’ days, smaller music performances, benefit parties, and art shows. Grub, the bi-monthly freegan community dinner bottom-lined by In Our Hearts, was held here for years. Want to hear how it all began? Read through for my interview with Sari, one of Rubulad’s founders.

Grub, photo by Julia Roberts

brooklyn spaces: When did you start doing this and why?
Sari: We’ve been going in different incarnations since ’93. It was started by four bands: Fly Ashtray, Uncle Wiggly, Smack Dab, and the Gamma Rays. Together we rented a huge place in South Williamsburg, back when things were cheap.

photo by E.A.R.

brooklyn spaces: Did you start right off throwing parties?
Sari: Well, we had this big space full of all these artists and musicians. And it felt a little flat to all the bands to just be playing in bars and not have any kind of control over the environment. We wanted to take a hand in that and say, “We’d like this band to play with these other performers, and then show these projections, and have a little play in between.” And we just invited the neighborhood in.

photo by me

brooklyn spaces: What were some of the obstacles you faced when you left Williamsburg for this new space?
Sari: One obstacle was the neighborhood. It took a while for people to want to come to Bed-Stuy. It’s hard to imagine that now, but even five years ago, people were like, “What? The G train?! You’re kidding!” But things moved quickly.

Grub, photo by Julia Roberts

brooklyn spaces: Let’s talk some more about the art and the artists.
Sari: I come at this as kind of a director of a show. My dream is to create a holistic piece of art, an experiential environment that many different people had a hand in. Our desire is to create work for people, and for people to get other work from having been here. The artists here have a chance to really evolve. We’re kind of family-oriented; lots of artists come back to do work here again and again, and so we get to see how they change and what happens to their art over several years. It’s really nice to give artists an opportunity for that growth, as opposed to just doing one show here, one show there.

photo by E.A.R.

brooklyn spaces: I read the interview you did with Nonsense NYC some years ago, where you talked about how for one party you needed sheets, and so you called all these hospitals to see if they would donate sheets.
Sari: We do have to hustle to get things, but you can have good adventures that way. That’s the part I like, the moment when you’re standing in a record store trying to find a square-dance caller or something else that you never thought you’d be doing.

photo from the Village Voice

brooklyn spaces: What have been some of your favorite party themes?
Sari: They always surprise you. You never really know when you pick a theme whether it’s gonna work. One of my favorite ones was Laundry Day. Who would have known that Laundry Day would turn out to be such a good theme? There’s a great picture floating around the internet of a girl playing music in roller curlers in front of the set of the laundry. And there was one party I really loved like ten years ago called Night of the Living Toys. That was really beautiful. If you look around the space, you can see remnants from them all.

photo from brokeassstuart.com

brooklyn spaces: How do you find the artists? Or do they find you?
Sari: Gosh, a lot of them find us. If they’re supposed to be here, they somehow hear about us, even in Australia or something. There’s really a lot of good stuff out there, almost endless good stuff. It’s amazing all the stuff that people know how to do.

photo by E.A.R.

brooklyn spaces: Clearly this is a creative space for making and appreciating art. But there are people who just see it as a party house. What do you think about that?
Sari: Well, those people are really missing the point, because if that’s what we wanted, we would just have a bar. People who are just looking for a place to drink beer, I encourage them to go to a bar, there are many. It’s not like we’re against that, but our parties are meant to be experiential. The whole point is for people to experience art that they wouldn’t see in the commercial world, or listen to music that they wouldn’t hear on commercial radio. Not that I mean to disparage beer, and I don’t want to underestimate the importance of celebration, because that’s really important to us. We definitely want to encourage more celebration and to help people make more holidays. People need them! Life is sad sometimes.

photo by E.A.R.

brooklyn spaces: How do you think being in Brooklyn has affected Rubulad? Do you feel like what you’re doing and have done is specific to Brooklyn?
Sari: That’s an interesting question. I’m a New Yorker and I went to high school in Brooklyn, so I’ve gotten to see Brooklyn really change. It used to be that everyone in Brooklyn just wanted to get to the city, and they thought of themselves as bridge-and-tunnel people. They’d think, if you make it, you go to Manhattan. That’s really changed, Brooklyn has really become its own city. Manhattan has become a place where the money lives more than where the people live. Here in Brooklyn there’s more space for independent stuff to happen, and there’s a lot of help from a great community. There are so many other spaces, other people who are doing amazing things. There’s a lot of cross-pollination between different groups, and we work with many groups who do things that are so different than we do. What was the last part of that question?

photo by Julia Roberts

brooklyn spaces: Do you feel like what you’re doing here is specific to Brooklyn?
Sari: Well, for years we thought that we were the only space like this in the world. We didn’t know that there were other Rubulads all over America and all over the world. I guess Burning Man was the first time we were like, “Holy shit, there are so many other people doing stuff!” The way we do things is specific to where we are, for sure, but we have connections to so many different kinds of spaces all over the place. I have a desire to live a life that doesn’t involve a certain kind of people, and I’ve been able to achieve that. I’m happy to never have to go to Midtown to work and live that sort of life. In New York that’s pretty hard to achieve, since it’s so expensive to live here. But there’s something about the grit of the struggle in Brooklyn that gives people a little added bite and energy. There’s so much going on right now, it’s a really good time around here, in Bushwick, Bed-Stuy. There are so many groups around that are really amazing, like the Groove Hoopers, or the Chicken Hut people. They’re like gutter-punk bike-jousters, and they throw a heck of a party. And we love Secret Project Robot. There’s so much going on in Brooklyn that we’re really excited about.

brooklyn spaces: Do you have any advice for creative people who are trying to figure out how to be involved in something like Rubulad?
Sari: There was a boy in here who once said in an interview, “Do art, be art, live art,” and that made me so happy. I want to encourage people to not be shy, to just make stuff and share it, because that’s what it’s for. I hope more people will make more spaces and do more weird theaters and galleries. If you decide to create your own thing and make it happen the way you want to, other people will enjoy it and join in.

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Like this? Read about other underground performance & party spaces: 12-turn-13, Monster Island, Flux Factory, Gemini & Scorpio loft, The Lab (Electric Warehouse), Red Lotus Room, Big Sky Works, Newsonic, Gowanus Ballroom