Westbeth Starts $84 Million Renovation

By Brian J. Pape

Westbeth’s west end building is completely engulfed in scaffolding as it begins replacing the 684 original wood windows and tuckpointing and repairing the brick masonry. This view is looking east from the Hudson River Park at Bank Street. Credit: Brian J. Pape, AIA.

Westbeth is a Greenwich Village institution well-known as the first and largest artists’ affordable cooperative housing complex in Manhattan, with 384 rent-stabilized and Section 8 subsidized units. In 1970 an entire city block from Washington to West streets, and Bank to Bethune streets, was converted from the Bell Laboratories complex of industrial buildings into the artists’ residences of today, for a reported cost of $13 million. Bell Labs is the famous company that started as Western Electric in 1868 in 13 buildings, and stayed from 1898 until 1966, developing high technology equipment for talking movies, transistors, TV broadcasts, condenser microphones and the first binary computer.

According to the Westbeth website, the artists of Westbeth range from emerging to well-established and represent a wide variety of disciplines. They include painters, writers, photographers, filmmakers, poets, sculptors, dancers, choreographers, musicians and composers, who have chosen the arts as their life’s work. Westbeth is owned by the not-for-profit Westbeth Housing Development Fund Corporation, administered by the Westbeth Board of Directors. Peter Madden is the current executive director. Cultural events are sponsored by the Westbeth Artists Residents Council (WARC), a tenant-elected not-for-profit organization.  WARC provides the collective voice of the residential community via tenant advocacy to safeguard affordable artist housing, and to support the production and presentation of art at Westbeth and to sponsor programming with resident and guest artists. This is done in partnership with other cultural organizations. WARC functions as a tenants’ association and partners with the Westbeth Corporation Board of Directors to address issues of concern to the residents.

So 55 years after the repurposing of the old masonry structures, a major overhaul was needed. It wasn’t helped by the disaster of Sandy which caused flooding of the basement work areas in 2012. Plans call for window replacement, façade tuckpointing, reroofing, painting, lead and asbestos removal, and many more items, including gut-renovating 32 vacant units left unlivable by previous tenants. A “green roof” is also planned on one area. The community is working with the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) to make all exterior changes comply with the neighborhood character, keeping the value of their homes. Completion may take until 2028.

How does a non-profit affordable housing community, with rents in the range of $900 for studios to $1,400 for a 3-bedroom, well below market rates, pay for such a huge undertaking, estimated at $84 million?

The initial funding for Westbeth came from the J. M. Kaplan Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and the mortgage is held by the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which nearly foreclosed on Westbeth in 1989. Westbeth also contains large and small commercial spaces, performance and rehearsal spaces which available for rent. According to an article by Anna Kode’ in the NY Times on March 9, 2025, funds come from grants, including the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation, National Park Service, New York State, and tax credits. Windows are a big part of the rehab costs, since there are 684 original windows being replaced, and each one is industrial-sized. Madden noted that each window replacement, including demolition, refitting, and installation, will cost an average of $20,000.

All this work will ensure that the Westbeth artists have an affordable, comfortable and stable home for many years to come.