Westbeth
About this property
Westbeth Artists Housing is a nonprofit housing and commercial complex dedicated to providing affordable living and working space for artists and arts organizations in New York City. The complex comprises the full city block bounded by West, Bethune, Washington and Bank Streets in the West Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City; the complex is named for the streets West and Bethune. It occupies the Bell Laboratories Buildings, which were the headquarters of Bell Telephone Laboratories 1898–1966, before being converted in 1968–1970. That conversion was overseen by architect Richard Meier. This low- to moderate-income rental housing and commercial real estate project, the largest in the world of its type, was developed with the assistance of the J.M. Kaplan Fund and federal funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. Westbeth is owned and operated by Westbeth Corp. Housing Development Fund Corp. Inc., a New York not-for-profit corporation governed by an unpaid, volunteer board of directors. Housing Development Fund Corporations (HDFCs) are a New York City-specific model of cooperative low-equity homeownership. As of 2009, Westbeth had a mostly elderly population, including many original tenants – about 60% of tenants were over the age of 60, and about 30% were over the age of 70. It is thus a naturally occurring retirement community, and has an on-site social worker. Children of tenants are allowed to take over their parents' apartment, and thus there is a multi-generational community. Due to the 10–12-year waiting period for an apartment, Westbeth closed its residential waiting list in 2007. This changed on March 18, 2019, when the institution started accepting applications for an indefinite period of time.
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Questions about this property
When was Westbeth listed on the National Register?
Westbeth was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 8, 2009.
What type of historic resource is Westbeth?
Westbeth is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Westbeth?
The period of significance for Westbeth is recorded as the industrial era.
Can I research the history near Westbeth?
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