About 100 New York City artists have a new place to call home, thanks to affordable studios in the Brooklyn Army Terminal.
Nonprofit ArtBuilt Brooklyn partnered with the de Blasio administration to bring artists together and provide them with a space to settle down in for at least the next 10 years. The artists were offered a 10-year lease with a five-year extension.
"Here at ArtBuilt Brooklyn, we are really committed to building a community of stable, prosperous artists," says ArtBuilt Co-Executive Director Esther Robinson.
The studio is the largest nonprofit artist space project in the city in 20 years.
Paul Ramirez Jonas has been an artist for 30 years and says the opportunity he has at ArtBuilt is unlike any he has had before.
"I'm an artist who is represented by galleries, shows internationally, shows and museums as a full-time professor. It's a good job and if I'm struggling, you can imagine what it's like for the versions of me that are in their 20s that are just getting started. It's becoming almost impossible for them," says Jonas.