A years-in-the-making “campus for creatives” has now opened in Greenpoint, Curbed reports.
The Lighthouse took over the former Kickstarter building at 58 Kent Street. The new location joins the Lighthouse’s original location in Venice, California.
Plebeians, beware, as a yearly membership will cost you at least $5,750 for individuals and can run up to $7,500 for 24-hour office access. All that dough gets you myriad amenities: podcast and recording studios, a cafe, a communal workspace, a test kitchen, as well as access to classes and legal assistance.
Unfortunately, The Lighthouse arrived at a particularly troubling time to stomach the idea of content creators getting a space perfectly calibrated to their needs.
They say people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, and I’ll be the first to admit that I’m writing this from an abode constructed of an embarrassing amount of TikTok screen time. We need not paint content creators with too broad a brush. Plenty of them make thoughtful and interesting videos that highlight New York City and all its nooks and crannies. There’s Jane August, who made it her mission to visit every single museum in New York City, and @hotandhumblejake, who explores unique ethnic enclaves and champions the people and small businesses who made them what they are.
Still, I can’t help but feel like this kind of infrastructure misses an opportunity to bolster our local community of artists (actual artists, not the millionth West Village girly with a matcha recommendation). Greenpoint’s artists are weathering the vicissitudes of high rents, small businesses shuttering, and a national climate of outright hostility towards the arts.
The Lighthouse’s location, just a stone’s throw from West Street, also rubs salt in a fairly recent wound. Jack Guttman of Pearl Realty just ousted multiple longstanding tenants with little advance notice, to make way for a new owner and an impending high rise. In the span of a couple of months, the corner of West Street and Greenpoint Avenue feels like a ghost town. 67 West Street, home to dozens of artist studios and workshops, remains the lone holdout, soon to be surrounded on all sides by luxury high rises.
Who knows how long until Guttman gets dollar signs in his eyes and axes one of the neighborhood’s most bustling creative ecosystems?
Wish them luck. I just heard Achilles Heel, the trendy bar on west St by the river is closing after 13 yrs.
So lame that this digital ‘work’ requires this giant space and actual creators of things have nowhere to rent anymore.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it appears the new (very wealthy/ mostly waterfront arrivals) in this neighborhood have (inadvertently) gutted Greenpoint of its long cherished local businesses (via rent increases, a list too long to mention), torn up and covered our parks in pet waste, added very little but overpriced Instagram traps/nail salons/veterinary clinics.. And they don’t seem to have any connection to improving this place (outside of their own glass boxes). Overpriced transitory/vapid/clinical spaces devoid of character or meaning are what they appear to be supplanting here. And yes, I’m aware there was a time people complained about bars, coffee shops, and record stores.. this place is losing it’s soul.