Illegal Living: 80 Wooster Street and the Evolution of SoHo BERNSTEIN + SHAPIRO
In
the mid-1960s, Fluxus founder George Maciunas became preoccupied with
the problem of artists' housing. "Normally the artist requires long
unbroken spaces with high ceilings and adequate illumination," he wrote
in a manifesto, "and these needs can only be met by commercial lofts."
Maciunas saw that New York's numerous underutilized downtown buildings
would provide ideal live-work spaces for artists, and in 1967 he bought
80 Wooster Street, creating the first artists' co-op, and one of
Manhattan's most buzzing avant-garde hotspots. 80 Wooster Street was
home to Trisha Brown, Jonas Mekas and Robert Watts among others, and
hundreds of artists, including John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Philip Glass,
Hermann Nitsch, Nam June Paik and Andy Warhol showed their work there.
Revealing the labyrinthine history and legacy of 80 Wooster St and SoHo
through archival photographs, interviews and first-person accounts, Illegal Living offers a definitive excavation of Maciunas' incredible venture.