Scottish born, NY-based artist, Stephen Hall has lived in the West Village for 22 years. A resident in the only remaining artist community building, WestBeth, Stephen has witnessed staggering changes to the composition and character of the neighborhood over the years. However, since Covid hit, with many residents departing the city, and as people have turned to online for retail its the impact on local mom and pop stores that has become most evident as one after another closed.
Is there a way back? What’s the best way forward? Can we come together to reimagine fabric of the neighborhood?
A little context on Westbeth. It was originally built in 1868 for Western Electric, Bell Laboratories took it over in 1898 and turned it into one of the world’s most important research centers. It was here that the first talking movie, the condenser microphone, the first TV broadcast, and the first binary computer were demonstrated. When Bell Labs re-located outside of Manhattan in 1966, the J. M. Kaplan Foundation, and Roger Stevens of the National Endowment for the Arts, launched the Westbeth renovation project to create 383 live-work spaces for artists of all disciplines and their families. Westbeth opened in 1970.